Salt is a moving, intelligent and great book.
An Earth colony ship arrives at its destination after 37 years en route carrying 12 separate colonies in their own individually built modules. The two recount both sides of their arrival and descent into war in alternating passages. It's a classic device and Salt shows why it's still a popular one. There's a beautiful and simultaneously frustrating dichotomy between the two of them. On the flipside, Petja's sections are interesting in their own right but lack the outrageous black humour of Barlei's.