A very quick read. I wish I hadn't noticed the comparisons to Heinlein on the dust jacket, because it was very hard afterwards to not think Stranger in a Strange Land as I was reading this. A shame, since Barnes does a much better job with some of the same material. Overall: solid, thought-provoking hard SF. Interesting treatment of the messianic themes that entirely avoids Heinlein's obnoxious forays into omniscience. There's no side trip to Heaven here to cheat the essential question of doubt. There's plenty of other material here as well. The personal relationships between the main characters are often painfully true to life, though Barnes seems to have a heavy hand at times. There's some interesting musing on why humans keep going in a world where their efforts aren't actually necessary to survive that hits close to home for me, after all of these months of unemployment, but it isn't as keenly focused as in an Iain M. Banks. A good book, but not really much new ground broken.