He paints a grand vision of almost unparalleled scale and scope. I really liked his Xeelee cycle, even though the writing is quite arid. But holy cow, this is a

He paints a grand vision of almost unparalleled scale and scope. I really liked his Xeelee cycle, even though the writing is quite arid. But holy cow, this is a writer who thinks BIG. Unfortunately he takes a few liberties with physics. Dark matter could never produce and sustain life. It's just too poor in terms of interactions. You need richly interacting matter for that, producing the most richly interacting atom of all - carbon - in order for life to appear and evolve.