Zindell uses the storytelling style of epic fantasy to spin a far-future hard SF tale. Three millennia into the future, Mallory Ringess is a newly trained Pilot of the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame that has the monopoly on faster-than-light travel, based in the city of Neverness on the world Icefall. He winds up in an odyssey that takes him into realms of posthuman gods and genetically revived cavemen in pursuit of a solution to the long-term survival of humankind and the mysterious series of supernovae devastating settled worlds.

The depiction of three thousand years of cultural development works manages to convey a sense of strangeness without making me reach for a dictionary like Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. The hero gets put through the wringer (sometimes due to his own impetuosity), so I recommend this story for when you’re up for an odyssey, not just thrilling your sense of wonder.

Some parts of the future history are already dated— the book was written at the tail end of the Cold War, back when we all lived with the spectre of Mutual Assured Destruction, and the tale of Old Earth being devastated in a nuclear holocaust already seems quaint. ( )

A story quite in the Moorcockian style of things. The adventures of Mallory-Ringess, pilot-mathematician, you could call it. If Jerry Cornelius turned up here, nobody would blink an eye, I think. With shades of the Spacing Guild starfaring as religion stuff thrown in. Of course, there is a big conspiracy or secret at the heart of it.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2006/11/neverness-david-zindell.html ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.a... ( )

This was a great book! Very complex and compelling. Even with all the tech it was still very interesting and well paced. ( )

This was given to me by another thingie as part of the thingie gift exchange a couple of years ago.

Not quite my cup of tea as it was a little more science-y than I really like. An interesting read, but I won't be picking up any more of Mr Zindell's books. ( )