Possibly the most far-reaching novel ever written. Clumsy, perhaps, in places, but not didactic--the perfect companion to Shaw's Methuselah's Children on one end and Clarke's Childhood's End on the other, and far surpassing them both. Stapledon demonstrates an insight, ability to re-think the accepted (both culturally, biologically, and religiously), and scope that is nothing short of dazzling. Let this one carry you.

An excellent book. Munroe fully imagines a post-singularity world in which that singularity arrives not with a bang but a protracted, shuddering whimper. This a book that combines detailed projections--of technology, of culture, of morality--combined with a queer, concrete lyricism; forget Kurt Anderson; Munroe is the Tom Wolfe for the tech-equipped post-millennial set.

The ending, described in posts below, is a bit jarring, but, as far as I can tell, is part of an overall shift in the accepted form of the novel withing the science fiction genre (a similar denoument occurs in "Somebody Comes to Town, Somebody Leaves Town," a novel published contemporaneously). It will be interesting to see where it leads.

Very, very clever--Munroe's style, if not particularly profound, at the very least scintillates. I've just emerged from an immersion in the s.f. of forty to seventy years ago and find that

A. Every speculative fiction novel is now an excuse for weird sex scenes

and

B. The average writer's ability to form an imaginative sentence has improved vastly from the days of Clark and Sturgeon.

This novel is a good example of both.