A vision of the deep future that is both grand and disappointingly tame. At its heart it's a coming of age adventure story where a grand mystery leads to some post apocalyptic expeditions, and eventually some deep space archaeology. The parts are loosely enough connected that it feels like it may have been originally published as a serial, or that he was writing as he went along to see where he ended up.
Some of the details are prescient, others are the introduction of tropes that are now well worn in the genre. As usual, women are mostly token trophies with whatever agency they have undercut by the protagonist, though theyy're is a burgeoning bromance that feels like it would be at the heart of a modern iteration of this book.
Interesting as a foundational piece of science fiction, but a bit tedious by modern standards.