The best way for me to describe this novel would be to call it The Silmarillion in Space. It's almost as epic and mythical as Tolkien's major work behind The Lord of The Rings and at times just as much hard work to read. In fairness it is described as 'hard science fiction' and while I am a sci-fi fan I'm not a tech head and so the laboured, for me, passages giving intricate details of the hardware and space survival techniques left me cold.