Frederik Pohl has succeeded and I consider this the finest piece of work I have yet to read of his.
One of the previous reviewers states that the characters are flat and impersonal. I don't agree. One of the primary characters is a star and therefore its thought process and motivations are bizarrely non-human but not flat. The other main character I found to be a view point character and filled this requirement perfectly.
Truly an awesome book and I recommend it with no reservations. For those of you interested in Frederik Pohl's works find out more at thoughtline.com. Thoughtline is debuting the first ever web page dedicated exclusively to Frederik Pohl in late Summer of 1999.