The reason he's become immortal, or whatever it is he's become, is that Maw is a pressganged pilot through arcspace, which normally drives people insane or makes them and their ships disappear. For some reason, it has made him something unsettlingly other. He calls himself a monster.
At the same time, Maw's people have been visited by god-like beings who warn of the death of a star in 200 hundred years time which will wipe out a sizeable chunk of the galaxy, including populated worlds. The oppresive regime has time to prepare, but instead decides to suppress news of this announcement. The undying Maw carries out assignments, falls tragically in love, and all the while the clock is ticking to the inevitable foom...
This is space opera on mind-bending scale, and yet it's about something we have seen and continue to see in our own lives here on mundane Earth - the ways people deal with, or refuse to even recognise, crisis. There's loads of strange and haunting stuff going on: the exact nature of what has happened to Maw, and what he now is and can do; the efforts of communities to preserve something of themselves before it is all lost; the way we live with impending and actual loss.
The result is something big on ideas but also very emotional. It is thrillingly exciting on an epic scale and yet also very personal, which is a natty trick to pull off so well. One key element is an unrequited love story where completely understanding the perspectives of both parties doesn't make it any less heartbreaking.
The stuff about the weird effects on pilots in arcspace reminded me of the classic "Scanners Live in Vain" by Cordwainer Smith (1950). In the deaths and resurrections, there are echoes of North's brilliant The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. But, brilliantly, it remained surprising right up to the last page.
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