If you read a lot of science fiction, you have probably read many, many books where the female characters pretty much exist to help out (and eventually sleep with) the male characters. They have no goals of their own and are effectively sex robots. Well, Charles Stross doesn't even bother trying to hide; the protagonist is a sex robot, straight up. Which makes all of the parts where you sit there rolling your eyes going, come on, that's just male fantasy fairly legitimate. Because you can imagine the sort of people who would design a sex robot putting in all of these flourishes.

The story is rollicking and the world is *fascinating*. To me the book had strong Robert A. Heinlein overtones - for a bit I thought we were in a Friday reboot. (Which is certainly not an insult.) Am not sure whether this was intentional or not - he did name check RAH, as well as John Scalzi, so for all of me it might be intentional. Overall, another fun read.