I'm surprised this book made my list of top 100 science fiction books. I'm even more surprised this book won a hugo. This book would have been really good if it were written in the nineteenth century. It would have made a good book to read alongside Jules Verne. But it won the hugo in 1971. I did not think it was well written. I'm not sure the core idea was a good one. Most of the book seemed to be a soapbox for the main character, who I was not attached to. And there are plenty of books that I enjoy where I'm not attached to the main character, but this one didn't have anything else. If you don't like this bland main character, there isn't a more substantiative thing to latch onto. The whole extreme future thing is not touched upon. The Ethicals aren't touched upon. The River is barely touched upon. The interesting parts of the resurrection aren't touched upon. Instead we get Burton, a character from the nineteenth century that should have been written in nineteenth century. The last chapter picked up the pace quite it bit, but it was too late at that point, my interest was gone. The author must have been meaning to make some commentary about society, religion, or ethics. If that was the intention this book completely missed its mark. Perhaps I had to read it when it was first published in the seventies.