Very disappointing novel that is basically a cosmic paean to American rugged individualism and the pioneer spirit that occasionally veers uncomfortably close to a ham-fisted libertarian polemic. The protagonist, "Hanno", is a blatant Mary Sue character. Although this is a story about immortal human beings who experience thousands of years of human history, Anderson has little interesting to say about life, love, or his characters. His writing for the love scenes is especially execrable. ( )

I was a little worried after reading the other reviews, but in the end decided to push forward and read this book myself. To be honest, it gets quite tedious, particularly in the first half of the book, in which the same story repeats itself endlessly: immortals living their lives, losing their loved ones, moving on, and searching for other immortals. The second half gets much more interesting (starting with Chapter XVIII), when all the immortals finally find each other, and in the last chapter (XIX), which takes place far into the future (these two last chapters comprise almost half of the book)

Overall, I'm glad I finished it. The book explores some of the possible consequences in society, the human mind, and scientific exploration, of immortality, which I found quite interesting. ( )

This is one of the very few books I can ever remember giving up on after reading halfway through. I had no empathy for or even interest in the protagonists--immortals who live on and on while those around them die. I have enjoyed several of Poul Anderson's sci fi novels, but not this one. Maybe it got better in the second half; I don't think I'll ever find out. ( )

A recent effort by one of SF's long-established practitioners, Boat tells the interrelated stories of a group of one-in-a-hundred- million humans who are born immortal. Unlike Heinlein's Methuselahs, however, these lucky few cannot pass their gift onto their descendants, condemning them to a lonely, if blessed (or is it cursed?) existence. The book begins several thousand years before the birth of Christ and continues past the present into the far future; on the way Anderson delivers palatable lessons on the nature of friendship and beauty, and the possible meaning of human existence. A little dry and ultimately disappointing, but still a decent read.

great book ( )