“What an excellent read!
If anyone would have said to me that you could smoosh an American entrepreneur, America special forces, African refugee, Chinese con artist, Chinese 'barrowboy' (girl), British MI6 agent, Hungarian hacker, Scottish gangster, Russian mafiya, Russian spetznaz and Welsh Jihadist into a single book spanning America, Canada, China and the Philippines (not to mention virtual worlds), I would have said they were mad.
Neal S achieves this, and does it with an extraordinary level of accomplishment, quickly bootstrapping all of the above into a pacey novel that with credible characters in incredible circumstances.
I won't go through the plot as this is readily available elsewhere, but this work is very much a technothriller that you could easily pick-up and enjoy as an airport or holiday read - very different in nature and character to Anathem or the Baroque Cycle.
Different in that there's a real narrative pace with events coming thick and fast, almost always as a result of little chance actions and decisions, often made by characters on the spur of the moment and often believable.
The resultant people and event collisions produce a gloriously insane collection of set-pieces and vignettes that glom together to produce a coherent whole.
If there's one criticism of the book it's that the early inventiveness and bonkers scenarios peter off towards the last 25% of the book as Neal tries to pull together the strands to tie the novel off into a complete package. Certainly by this point it's clear to me where it's all heading - the telegraph signals couldn't have been more obvious.
Overall - I'd give this a 9/10 for style and enjoyment and it's well worth your £$!”
