Dickson takes us back to his Dorsai universe in this novel, but overall, this novel is just another average book with glimpses of raw emotion. The most important part of this novel is the fact that we get a glimpse of the powerful Final Encyclopedia, and we get to meet the originator of this wonder. The main character begins to understand his unnatural powers of vision while on tour of the Final Encyclopedia.

It is here, that Tam realizes he can see the whole picture as to his future, and the future of other cultures. Tam decides to become a newsman, and become prominent in his field. However, on a routine sweep of a battle for reporting purposes, Tam views the death of his brother-in-law in an act of cold-blooded murder. At this point, Tam becomes a little more cryptic, dark, and motivated to a devasting end. Tam's main goal is to wipe a culture out of the universe.

Now, this novel presents many unique sociological and psychological issues. But overall, the plot is very bland. There is not much in the way of exciting reading found in this novel. Again, as in other Dorsai novels, you can view bits and pieces of the super-warriors in the Dorsai. But the plot is not a real mover-and-shaker. I would recommend that you read this novel only to say you read all of the books in the Dorsai series, beyond that, there is no real outstanding reason to pick up this book.

The third (in theory) of the Childe Cycle books, this is the first one that feels like the series is heading anywhere, with more of the main concepts (the Splinter Cultures, the Final Encyclopedia) explained in more detail and finally a sense of direction starts to emerge. This book concerns Tam Olyn, a Newsman who has an unfortunate experience with the Friendly culture (the ultra-religious people . . . though not for nothing, it would be nice for once to see a fanatical religion that isn't directly based on Christianity, it's becoming a bit of a cliche now and it would be nice to show a little bit of imagination) and basically vows to bring their entire culture down . . . not all of his manipulations make perfect sense to me frankly (a common thing with Dickson, either I'm missing the man's logic or it's just not well thought out) but it's the thought that counts and it's fun watching his plan almost come to fruition. Tam Olyn is one of the more interesting characters to come down the pipeline but he's not as much fun as the guy from Tactics of Mistake (no sense of humor and a little too full of himself . . . Paul Formain might have been boring but at least he wasn't arrogant) but he almost makes up for it with sheer intensity and his unswerving focus provides a good amount of drive to the novel. Sometimes the supporting characters are more interesting than he is though (ie Jamethon Black, although Lisa Kant and Eileen continue the trend of having female characters who, er, don't do anything) and the few Dorsai that show up clearly steal the show, making it obvious when Dickson's loyalities lie . . . what makes this book work isn't really the main plot so much as the deeper glimpse into this future history Dickson has going, while he does steal slightly from Asimov ("ontogenetics" = psychohistory last I checked) the idea of humanity splitting into the distinct groups (and then eventually rejoining) plus the stuff like the Final Encyclopedia are all great concepts and I look forward to seeing more of them in the future books (one thing does bother me, why is no one ever mentions the Scientists, be a shame to leave them out) . . . this novel is entertaining in its own right but on it's own it's merely average . . . when placed in context with the rest of the books in the Cycle, it gains a little more importance. Dickson can't write anything totally unreadable and this is clearly more interesting than the earlier books but it's not exactly a masterpiece . . . it has enough to make you keep reading and it goes by quickly. You won't feel you wasted your time but you may not feel any desire to go back and read it again either.

This book was recommended to me by my father. He is a literary person and I have never read a book he suggested and been let down. While I'm using universal qualifiers I might as well bring up the fact that I've never seen my father cry. That is until I got into a discussion with him concerning this book. I could not believe how moving the book was for him and it had been years since he read it. I must admit that after reading it; it made a big impression on me.

The book has:

A great struggle between good and evil.
An amazing example of faith / believing in something wholeheartedly (the title eludes to it)
And Nero Linguistic Programming (the main character is capable of controlling others simply by how he interacts with them)

It's a great book.