This was almost a really good book. It suffered some of the same problems as his first book Revelation Space: awkward dialogue, a lack of sympathetic characters, general bloat. But somehow these flaws didn't matter as much. The storyline seemed more focused (though even longer) and the characters had more charm and clearer motivations than Revelation Space, at least until the end when everything got confused. And one of the plotlines, taking place in weird dream flashbacks aboard a generational colony ship was genuinely tight and creepy.

The end was where this fell down. The book resolved in a somewhat clever and mostly satisfying manner, but the actual resolution was weirdly easy given the lengthy struggle of the rest of the book and a major change in a character is stated as having happened without any explanation as to why, keeping the main final revelation as a gimmick instead of the genuinely interesting character study I kept hoping for, but wasn't really expecting.