Caterpillar Dreams

Towards the end of the twenty first century, the spacecraft Endeavour, on its way to the planet Jupiter, is hit by a sudden crisis shortly after its eight astronaut crew is woken up from suspended animation. Unable to decelerate into orbit around the giant planet, the spacecraft carries on to the edge of the solar system, on a trajectory that will not bring it back to Earth until three hundred years have passed.  When it does return, the crew finds itself in a world in which mankind has changed in a fundamental way, and discover that they will have to change too if they are to find a place for themselves in the bizarre and incomprehensible world of the future ..