Tau Zero by Poul Anderson

A nice surprise. I read Brain Wave by the same author some years ago and didn't like it. The worst part for me was the cardboard characters. Thought the author wasn't for me, but a few weeks ago, I decided to read Tau Zero only because I liked the synopsis. This story is much better. I found the idea of an Interstellar trip reaching near light speed without the ability to stop, interesting, and original. A spaceship with broken brakes. Liked the depiction of the crew, the interactions, the worries, and the passing of time, not months or years, but hundreds of thousands, millions of years. Found the ending a bit rushed but still good, in terms of the physical, astronomical, and philosophical concepts used to create the resolution. A quote I liked: "This Leonora Christine, seventh and youngest of her class. Her outward simplicity was required by the naof her mission and was as deceptive as a human skin; inside, she was very nearly as complex and subtle. The time since the basic idea of her was first conceived, in the middle twentieth century, had included perhaps a million-man years of thought and work directed toward achieving the reality; and some of those men had possessed intellects equal to any that had ever existed. Though practical experience and essential tools had already been gotten when construction was begun upon her, and though technological civilisation had reached its fantastic flowering (and finally, for a while, was not burdened by war or the threat of war) - nevertheless, her cost was by no means negligible, had indeed provoked widespread complaint. All this, to send fifty people to one practically next-door star?"