“Dazzling…wrenching…a mind bender.”—Time
“Brain-boggling.”—Life
“Full of poetry, scientific imagination, and typical wry Clarke wit. By standing the universe on its head, he makes us see the ordinary universe in a different light…[This novel becomes] a complex allegory about the history of the world.”—The New Yorker
“Clarke has constructed an effective work of fiction…with the meticulous creation of an extraterrestrial environment, the sort of extrapolation of which Mr. Clarke is a master.”—Library Journal
“Breathtaking.”—Saturday Review