The strange conglomeration of science fiction, political activism, and suspense treats the reader to a very different kind of book. I could not put it down at times; at other times passages did seem to drag on. Hoag has a gift for character development, apparent in the portrayals of Benja and the Mechanic. I found the description of setting to be fantastic, especially in the flashbacks to Greenland. Someone like myself, who did not know much about Denmark and even less about Greenland, would learn very much from this book thanks to the numerous descriptons of the people, the weather, and their societies. My one complaint is that the transition between the two halves of the novel was not smooth; it almost felt as if two different books. Overall I found this to be a very engaging and intriguing novel.