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A fun piece of Singularity-flavor SF, and (unlike various of MacLeod's other books) not Number N in a series of K (at least as far as I can tell). Which is nice.
No point in a detailed plot description, really. The AIs of Earth got self-consciousness and more or less Took Over some years ago, and the remnants of humanity scattered (via wormholes and FTL ships the origins and nature of which form some of the background mystery of the book and are eventually more or less explained) to other systems. There are three or four power groups with varying approaches to life, to the various posthuman artifacts that are around, and to each other. And there is generally-available mind-backup and nano-fabrication and stuff like that. In this interesting background various things happen. It's mostly about the interactions between humans and human groups rather than interactions with the post-human entities that are around (if mostly silent and enigmatic), although we do get a bit of that latter at the end.
The ending is a bit of a deus ex machina, but in context it's entirely appropriate. *8) Definitely recommended for Singularity fans, hard-SF fans in general, and anyone who likes or might like this sort of thing.
This web page is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.