Dismal writing performance. Just as blah as Clarke's Rama series. The good SciFi writers have all run out of gas. I picked up the book thinking it would be a science adventure like Foster's The Dig, only to discover it was about politics as usual, and maybe 10% reference to things of science. The characters were stereotypical, and you could match item for item how the story was put together with his own SciFI writing method he published. For an early teen audience.