This Alastair Reynolds novel is rife with verbose exposition, redundant in presentation, weak on dimensional characterization, poorly paced, with an utter lack of satisfying concrete prose. In short, an overlong mess with a very well reasoned premise. Why am I still reading this bloated book? Well, Alistair Reynolds throws out compelling ideas with a whiff of noir and techno-dystopia sci-fi, and in this case steampunk, cowboys and angels are tossed around too, but without any overly reverential genre aping. The effect is a new flavor of cybershake for our modern times and sciences with a big melancholy payoff in the end. So, I continue, sighing over each sentence begrudgingly, wishing Reynolds would develop a better command, or at least more of an interest in his words as he does in exploring his immense technical knowledge and imagination.

On the cover, this image of the spire city really helped me to understand what the world was about, how it was constructed, etc. A rare confluence of illustration and story. Although, some niggling part of me feels that I shouldn't need the picture for explication purposes.