I've heard a lot of mixed things about this book -- this is what drew me to it in the first place. Someone reviewed it as the worst scifi+religion blend they'd ever seen, and others said it blew their minds. I think I end up somewhere in the middle. It was a very interesting book and I read it pretty quickly because I wanted to see what happened, but I was a little disappointed with the mundane ending -- not that there was still recovery needed, but that the whole lead-up had been building to really a simple and not very innovative cause. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, aha.) Still, the characters were well-constructed and I liked and empathized with most of them, and Russell was very respectful of religion, allowing for good and bad and simple normalcy, without too much mysticism. I would recommend this book.

I have my mom's original copy of this from the 70s. It's kind of falling apart, but from what I remember, it was a decent book.