Rating: 
Summary: Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Review: Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Charles Sheffielf tells the story of one man's odyssey to the end of time in the pursuit of lost love, expanded from the short story "At the Eschantion." The book can easily be seen as two separate stories. It begins by telling the tale of a professional musician, Drake Merlin, and his wife, Ana. The two seem to be living the perfect lives when one day Drake comes home and discovers that his wife has developed a terminal form of cancer. In desperation he has her cryogenically preserved moments before her death. He then has himself frozen, his head filled with knowledge that may one day prove to be useful. His hop is that some day he will be revived in a future where Ana can be cured and the can live out their lives together. Drake gets revived some five hundred years in the future but it was a time and place that sought to keep him from his love. Drake then goes about acquiring a ship that can travel at relativistic speeds and steals his wife's cryotank and leave the solar system. To him, only months pass, but to those he left behind, thousands of years have gone by when he returns. It is from here that the story takes a turn because Drake has foolishly opened Ana's tank while in transit leaving her dead beyond repair. Drake put himself back into cryosleep in thinking that maybe the future will provide the answers he needs. Now the story is based more on a history of our future and Drake's participation in fighting off a galactic scourge, the Shiva, that threatens all sentient life in the galaxy. But Drake's journey can end only the end of the universe, when all matter is beginning to fall back to the point of its birth. At the Eschantion, a moment in time when all information that ever was and would be is within his reach, Drake hopes to recover the lost soul of his beloved. In reading this story I was intrigued by the questions it raised about our own humanity. What does it men to be human? In time artificially intelligent machines are created and human minds can exit in totally computer-generated environments or be downloaded into mechanical or biologically engineered bodies that are nothing that we of today would consider "human." Not only do these minds exist in a sort of cyberspace, they are also frequently copied and downloaded into multiple bodies. Drake goes through a similar process many times in order to defeat the Shiva. The author comes to the conclusion early in the book that humans are not just physical bodies; rather, we are our minds and thought and ideas. According the Sheffield, the human mind is our soul. Tomorrow and Tomorrow is an easy read for fans of the hard science-fiction genre and its look in the future is fascinating. The concepts of technology and science can be technical at times but in no way interferes with the story telling. Some may feel a little let down by the end of the book, but nothing that's bad enough to ruin it. In my opinion this is a must read for all that are interested in any kind of science-fiction, from hard sci-fi fans to cyberpunks.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not satisfying
Review: A fun read, but obviously pumped up from a short story. Many authors would have taken some of the concepts in the novel and blown them up into 4- or 5-book series. Still, and the end, you have to wonder how humanity has changed so little over several billions of years...
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Summary: Want to see the end of the universe?
Review: An expansion of a short story. A cryo nightmare that leads to the end of the universe. Lots of ideas and interesting, but not totally cohesive.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books of one of the best writers.
Review: Buy it. T&t is an almost perfect exemple of what hard sci-fi should be. As allways with Sheffield, the scope of the plot is enormous the science is beliveble and abundent, and his ideas about future development of technolegy and society are remarkble. buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: An Epic Tale
Review: Charles Sheffield does a fine job here in this eons spanning tale, to me at least it mostly appears plausible. Here you will read of cryonic suspensions, control of matter at the atomic level, downloading of minds into other vessels of thought, a universe of post-humanity, and many other amazing things, it was page-turning material for me. The primary character is Drake Merlin, his wife died of an untreatable condition and he had her cryonically suspended, willing to do practically anything to bring her back to him, an obsession indeed. He goes through many trials and tribulations along the way, all of this is believable in the hard science fiction tradition. I could relate to the refreshing world-view permeating this novel, no myth filled views here, this is a journey into unimaginable stretches of time, well worth reading. The only real criticism I found in this book is how Sheffield treats the subject of cryonic suspension, he does seem to present many inaccuracies, a minor point here, but I do take one star off for it. For a better description of how cryonics actually works in real life read "The First Immortal" by James Halperin, or "Tech Heaven" by Linda Nagata. These two are very fine novels and not to be missed for the science fiction aficionado.
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Summary: A mind-boggling scifi romance of epic proportions...
Review: Charles Sheffield is a very unique author. Though in this story there is a lot of "techno jargon" and theories about space and time, the inner plot and underlying story presented in this novel are as pure and fresh as any love story, regardless of how strange the words may seem. Drake Merlin's quest to revive his beloved Ana and the sacrifice he endures to save her life, evokes an extraordinary feeling in the reader. You pass over the technological aspect and scientific descriptions and are left with the same feelings that Drake is going through. His obsession with Ana may seem to most a bit drastic, or maybe even on the verge of insanity, the way he puts away everything in his life and gives up his dreams just so he can see her face again. However, I found it touching. This is a very unique love story, in that it differs, in part, from the sterotyped love stories, and at the same time is something that everyone can enjoy. I rate "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" five stars and recommend it to anyone who is looking for something out of this world.
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Summary: A mind expanding voyage
Review: Excellent, excellent story. What sci-fi reader wouldn't find the idea of a journey millions of years into the future fascinating? Very well written and awe-inspiring. I know we can only guess about what the far future holds in store for humanity but this book presents a captivating glimpse into what the author calls "the undiscovered country of the future". I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story,but cryopreservation a bit wrong
Review: Great Story, but implications of cryopreservation seemed a bit inaccurate. I would recommend any hard sci-fi fan read Charles Sheffield's Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a saga that spans the near future to the end of the universe. Our Hero starts off by using cryopreservation to save the love of his life and then battles his way to the end of time in his attempts to restore her to life. The plot is somewhat inaccurate and negative about the concept of cryopreservation, but the author is a mathematician and physicist by training and the bulk of the work centres on the "new physics" ideas about the nature and life of the universe. Many of these ideas are explored in sections of this novel. In terms of what really is going to happen with cryopreservation, I would still recommend Jim Halperin's The First Immortal (also available from Amazon.com) as the best possible fictionalised account. But for a good romp through time and space, then you won't be disappointed by Dr Sheffield's entertaining work.
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Summary: For the hard-core SF reader
Review: I became involved with the Drake at the beginning as the story established his love and relationship with his wife, Ana. This was paramount since the rest of the book gets into heavy content. Drake is an unusual hero, a sensitive musician/composer, who must become an expert in many sciences to rescue Ana. This was not an easy book to read. Drake's quest through millennial millennium of time and space are details concocted in the mind of a physicist/mathematician author; words or paragraphs couldn't be skipped if his concepts were to be understood. The author worked with different paradigms, but anchored them in the constants of physics. However, he went beyond my feeble reasoning many times. What kept me going was Drake's love for Ana which carries him through to a final reunion.
Rating:
Summary: Ambitious, but not always successful
Review: I dunno. Charles Sheffield knows his science; in fact, to prove it, he's included an appendix that summarizes the astronomical/cosmological theories on which this tale is founded. He even makes reference to Frank Tipler's _The Physics of Immortality_, making this the second book I've recently read that does so. (The other is Robert Sawyer's _Flashforward_.) But the story itself is Asimovian in the best and worst senses. Like the Good Doctor, Sheffield is ambitious in his reach: this is a _cosmic_ story, with a breathtakingly wide scope. But also like the Good Doctor, he tends to give his characters made-up-sounding pseudo-futuristic names like Fundular Threem or Gordis Pulge (both of which I just now made up, but they sure sound Asimovian, don't they?). And like the Good Doctor, he sometimes lets the scope of the tale get in the way of the telling, resorting to broad, summary expositions rather than actual drama. Well, the story is captivating, at least. The first portion -- Drake Merlin making arrangements for himself and his wife Ana to be cryonically preserved until a cure is available for her disease -- is well-written and well-paced. The first round of Drake's future awakening is handled well too. But it starts to come apart after that. First of all, Drake does something so incredibly, astoundingly, outrageously, mind-bendingly _stupid_ (I won't tell you what, but you'll know when you get there) that it just about ruins the character and the plot. Second, the end of the first portion of the book leaves (let's say) something to be desired in the way of personal continuity. And third, the latter portion of the story -- the stuff in the way-far future -- is probably just a little more than Sheffield should have bitten off. I won't give away any details here, but it's just not possible to tell that part of the tale without resorting to the summary exposition I mentioned above. The narrative tends to drag, there isn't much dramatic action, and we don't even get to see the final resolution of the problem Drake is supposed to be trying to solve. The ending is pretty good, considering. And I can't fault Sheffield for aiming high, so I give him lots of points for ambition. Nevertheless there are enough unsatisfying features that I have to deduct a star. Still, it's nicely done overall, and well worth reading.
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