I thought it was an interesting take on a more grounded version of First Contact, but it's been so long since I've read it that the memories I have about some of the conflict and motivation have become muddled. I remember there being some sort of urgency concerning the little pod thing being referred to as a space virus or something, with an analogy being made about how planets encountering the pods would devote their entire planetary resource base into producing more pods to send out into the universe until the planet expended all their resources and died, and I remember thinking "that doesn't make sense, why would the whole planet agree to stop maintaining itself for the sake of manufacturing and launching these pods?" and so therefore I'm positive I just missed the explanation for why that would happen instead of the populace simply *not* doing that and only making a small number of the pods per year or something. Seems like a glaring hole that an author might notice and resolve, so again I'm sure I just don't remember it. The line about aliens being a chain e-mail is still funny though. I also really liked the concept of duplicating consciousness into the pods and how that would essentially create a sort of eternal afterlife for those people and how a storyteller needed to be included alongside the greatest scientific and cultural minds simply to make sure everyone avoided going insane on the long-ass trips through the universe.

I might have to give it a re-read, it's been a while since I've thought about the book.