Distress

This isn't one of Egan's best, I think – as always, the mathematical and science ideas are solid (and pleasantly mindblowing), but at times I felt like the story itself was taking a backseat. Extra points for some very positive explorations of gender and sexuality (including having a very sympathetically-written gender-neutral, asexual character who played a large part in the story). It's good overall, solid Egan – I just thought that, while it started out strong and ended strong, there was a bit of a slog in the middle. Maybe it wasn't quite fair to read it just after rereading [b:Axiomatic 156783 Axiomatic Greg Egan http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1287341765s/156783.jpg 1270534].