There have been so many minor characters introduced, who's had some kind of a run-in with one of the main characters, I can't even begin to keep track of them. Sure, real people have all kinds of minor relationships, but I can't imagine people who'd consider all of them relevant to their current lives. There have been some attempts at linking them up in the book, but the time span is so great, I can't remember who was who and who is who. Worse yet, the message the author is trying to convey seem to be the same with many of these characters. Maybe the author is coming up with all these characters from his own past experiences, and so each of them means something different to him. Unfortunately, I, as a reader, want to learn about the characters' feelings, not the author's feelings.
A large portion of this volume is dedicated to dealing with robots that could replace humans, particularly in space travel. We're to discover qualities of human astronauts (or any other profession for that matter) that cannot be substituted by robot replacements. I like the theme, but I don't feel it's very well presented.
Overall, it's a bit of a drag to read through. I feel like I'm repeating myself because I probably complained about this in previous volume listings.
