I am having trouble with this review because there are so many different ideas in this book that I don’t even know what to write about. It was a wildly creative book, with a heady mixture of computer science, bildungsroman, nanotechnology, and, like all good sci-fis, a fair bit of speculative sociology.
I think part of this strange gestalt is a product of when it was released—after computers but just as the internet was taking off—and part of it is a product of the Author who, I would assume, has a strong interest in math and computer science. It’s turned the book into a hybrid of Gene Wolfe’s “wtf is going on here” style and William Gibson’s “wtf is going on here” style: a pre-internet cyberpunk with incredibly futuristic social organization.
I guess pointing out that this book was a result of zeitgeist and author interests is a bit obvious… whatever though… something made this book feel a little different from most sci-fis I have read. It was great and I highly recommend it.