The Book starts out with the human interstellar empire at its peak, and the greatest human scientist, Dr. Avrana Kern, is watching the disastrous end of an experiment to terraform a planet that is several light years away from earth, and try to recreate human evolution there.

Unknown to her, a catastrophe is about to befall the empire she knows, plunging humanity into the dark ages and relegating her experiment to mere legend.

After they are able to salvage a ship from the ruins of the old world, the last colony of humans are on their way to that same planet, seeking a place to set down roots and grow once more.

This sets up a scenario where you are watching an alien invasion from the point of view of the aliens (the human beings). I found myself, very much like Dr. Kern, rooting against that ship that represented the last of our kind, hoping against hope that humanity goes extinct.

If you want a new point of view on evolution, intelligence, empathy and what it means to be human, Tchaikovsky's space epic is the book for you. I found myself wiping a few tears from my eyes at the climax of the book, and while it's not a page turner, it is a poignant, thoughtful story