I was almost done with this book, I had the audio version narrated by Leonard Nimoy, when I went to Ted Dekker's website and found out that he was using this story (and the books that came after it) as an alegory to explain how faith, religion and god work as he understands them in his life.

Put on those terms, the story went from a better than average sci-fi tale to something really incitful. It is an amazing work. Though I know the author has moved to more mainstream thriller/suspense mysteries, and even though those tales may be better than this one, on the surface, I think this is one of his best works.

It's a good read, the characters are well done and develop, but the story leaves you wanting to know more about their past. They sort of spring onto the scene all of a sudden. It's still a good read, even if you can't see the connection with the philosophy of religion when you read it.