I discussed Poul Anderson's
The Enemy Stars (London, 1979) (and
here) without mentioning its main point. Four men face death and thus also life. Only one survives and he matures. Men of very different backgrounds, characters and worldviews clash but also cooperate. There is heroic self-sacrifice, genuinely heroic: one man dies that others might live; another eats less than his share of the rations and ensures that it will not be known that he has done this - he has gone far beyond wanting praise or adulation.
The setting of their ordeal is truly cosmic, a dead sun far from Earth, possibly even a remnant of the previous cosmic cycle. This emphasises that the main question is the meaning, if any, of the entire universe. At the end, Kipling is quoted and the term "admiralty" is used as it is near the end of
The Star Fox.
"'You have told me why men go, and it isn't for nothing. It is because they are men.'" (p. 141)
I suggest that
The Enemy Stars is a major Poul Anderson text.
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