Jeremy

Great book. I really enjoyed the philosophical argument put forward about consciousness and humanities place in the universe.

> “It matters,” she said, “because it means we attacked them before Theseus launched. Before Firefall, even.”... She leaned forward, bright-eyed. “Imagine you're a scrambler, and you encounter a Human signal for the very first time.”

So the central premise is interesting and it's very well illustrated by narrating the story and background from the view of a person with a particular brain condition that has been imperfectly rectified by future medicine.

I thoroughly enjoyed the writing. It flowed really well, which made me keep reading even when the story was not as clear as it could be. In may ways its an antidote to typical hard SF space operas - in this book the technology doesn't matter. The imagery is vivid, but not detailed or boring, so the mind can fill it in.

I really enjoyed this book, more so than Reynolds other recent books. It reminded me of House of Suns in the beauty of the writing and how I liked the characters. However, this one is closer to literary fiction rather than an adventurous romp. It's quite a short novel, and I was glad of that because it felt the particular story could be made to drag on. I was also reminded of Terminal World, this story is a knuckling down on the character type and twisty sense of reality, but with more focus.