Well, this was an odd one. What starts as a humorous parody of Star Trek and several other sci-fi series, changes to something a bit darker, and then gets deeply existential. About 2/3 of the way through it has an incredible Dr Who moment where the levity changes to deep empathy for the characters and their situation. The story wraps up with the Gordian Knot solution to free will vs predestination: if you can't tell what is forced and what is chosen, then you just keep choosing and assume it makes a difference. The codas serve to emphasize this point in a very interesting way (I found the second one the most effective, probably because of the point of view). 
 The entire novel reads is certainly Hugo worthy and should make a great central thesis for many english research papers in tue coming years, not only for the free will discussions above, but also for the layered structure of the narrative.