"It was delightful to be presented with a scene to stagger the imagination and yet have it described so exactly and meticulously as to know you have been there." --Isaac Asimov "Arthur has done it again--proved that the chief ingredient of superior science fiction is story." --Frank Herbert "Something for everybody--politics, religion, and all kinds of science wrapped up in a taut mystery-suspense." --Publisher's Weekly "Mr. Clarke is splendid. . .We experience that chilling touch of the alien, the not-quite knowable, that distinguishes SF at its most technically imaginative." --The New York Times --