I read this soon after it was published, and it left a powerful impression on me.

Early on in the book, it is full of very short sequences, full of crazy edgy new terminology, a glittering description of a world both seriously trashed out yet full of fabulous advanced technology, which was often grafted into the characters themselves. You don’t know what the hell is going on. You don’t know how these different people and scenes might eventually make sense or come together. You gradually piece it together like a detective novel that slowly makes more sense over time.

There is a strong ‘sex, drugs, and violence’ vibe, and it’s clear that intriguing power struggles must be going on behind the scenes. The descriptions of crazy, intense experiences of advanced synthetic drugs is a standout bit of ambience creating weirdness, kind of like the cinematic depiction of the drug ‘slow-mo’ in the recent Judge Dredd movie (the one with Karl Urban).

“The drug hit him like an express train, a white-hot column of light mounting his spine from the region of his prostate, illuminating the sutures of his skull with x-rays of short-circuited sexual energy. His teeth sang in their individual sockets like tuning forks, each one pitch-perfect and clear as ethanol. His bones, beneath the hazy envelope of flesh, were chromed and polished, the joints lubricated with a film of silicone. Sand storms raged across the scoured floor of his skull, generating waves of high thin static that broke behind his eyes, spheres of purest crystal, expanding…”

Eventually it comes together, with ultra-intelligent AI entities playing a strong role in all the intrigue.

To me, the book is a masterpiece of ‘style over substance’. The plot ultimately is not super innovative, but the newness of the setting, and the ultra-cool characters and overall vibe was incredibly satisfying and fresh. Good stuff!