Disappointing. The first 500 or so pages could have been compressed into 50, or even 5. I skipped over many pages in the first half of the book.

Arthur C. Clarke would have covered the first half in quite a short book. Sherri S Tepper could have written a better second half.

I found it unlikely that the world would unite peacefully to populate a single space station. China at least could have launched another space station. Many countries with millennial religious groups would simply declare war on their neighbours in order to hasten the end times. Other countries would simply not believe the warnings.

There were too many infodumps. The author also invented jargon that was only used twice, but spent pages pointlessly explaining it. This also caused me much page-skipping.

I found it hard to believe that, after 5000 years, the English language had merely gained some Russian words and Cyrillic letters, but otherwise would have sounded very similar to today. Very few languages have existed for 5000 years, let alone significantly unchanged.

Somehow, despite limited semiconductor production, and an absence of metal, plus massive damage to the space station, video and text survives undamaged over 5000 years.