Nice review, @SpanishSpy. It’s worth mentioning that Steele built the novel to a fair extent on the world-building he’d done for his earlier novel The Tranquility Alternative and the even earlier short story Goddard’s People. Though, like with Clarke’s Space Odyssey series, they don’t all quite take place in the same universe.
I really enjoyed this book when I've read and re-read it--it and Tranquility Alternative introduced me to the rest of his work, which is also pretty good.