End of Exile

My payoff for making it through the first two books! Extra star for nostalgia; this is one of the first scifi books I read as a kid and it made a huge impression on me. Looking back I am sure I identified with the hero, the young engineer whose talents no one respected but ended up saving everyone's lives. Also it's just a fun mix of sci-fi story and adventure.

What makes this book really good though is the setting in a lapsed civilization. It's almost a post-apocalyptic novel, the way society has regressed to superstition and loss of technology. Remarkably this came out the same year as High-Rise but the two books don't have much in common other than the setting.

This book would make an excellent TV serial. Particularly if Magda and Monel were fleshed out and given more depth as characters. The biggest weakness of the book is the hacky writing; Bova is really not a very good prose stylist. But imagine Expanse-like production values, it'd be terrific.