Joachim Boaz was a deformed orphan before the Colonnaders took him and reshaped his body with “silicon bones.” It was only after this radical surgery and to forget his past that he renamed himself after the two pillars of eternity at the ends of the universe, Joachim and Boaz. The enhancements mean he is susceptible to torments (and later, pleasures) to an intense degree and also that he is more or less incapable without his spaceship in close proximity.

He sets off to the elusive planet Meirjain, which takes a complex orbit in and around the closely knit stars of the Brilliancy Cluster, where time gems allow the past or future to be observed. Unfortunately such gems are contraband.

It is a measure of Bayley’s eclecticism that these meanderings, which many an SF writer would have explored minutely and at great length, are not the main focus of the book.

There are, though, musings on the cyclical nature of the universe and on whether Joachim will suffer his torments over and over again, all in Bayley’s somewhat dry style - which involves a lot of info dumping and telling rather than showing.

It would almost be absurd to complain that this tends to be at the expense of characterisation as Bayley’s intent is more to expound ideas but it does make for a less engaging reading experience.

Unfortunately, there is, too, a degree of casual sexism which may have gone unremarked on first publication over thirty years ago but jars badly nowadays and, towards the end of the book, the least enticing sex scene I’ve ever read.

This is probably one for Bayley completists only.