"A wind came across the ocean, sweeping with it a pall of fine white ash. The ash fell into the sea and into the breakers. The breakers washed dead shrimp ashore with the driftwood. Then they washed up the whiting. The shark swam out to his deepest waters and brooded in the old clean currents. He was very hungry that season."

This is a big novel grappling with big ideas. It probes and ponders and sets its characters in pursuit of intense contemplation. What flaws the novel has are an ironic blindspot to a project dedicated to finding meaning in a sweeping examination of humanity's intersections of science, faith, and self-destruction: no women. No intimate relationships. No parenthood. Seriously though, there are no women in this novel (excluding a single, mutant mother Mary figure).

Walter Miller, Jr. never healed from his own PTSD after WWII (he blew his brains out in 1996 after living like a drug addled shut-in most of his adult life). That pessimism shades much of this novel. Of course, the tragedy of such a life is the prolonged and desperate searching for help. This novel longs for something reliable and long-standing to believe in and that longing infects the reader, who might be willing to look past Miller's disappointing conclusions. I'm sympathetic. During the war he took part in the bombing of Monte Cassino, killing hundreds of civilians taking refuge in the monastery.