Taking a break from fantasy/romance/mystery, i picked this book up because my brother recommended it. And it was TOTALLY worth it! If you read a lot of my reviews you know I adore Iain Banks' work, and this book felt like a cousin of his work. Basically we're dealing with a deep future society depended on vast machines, and an overarching mystery of a sabateur, a James-Bond-like main character, and a side-plot of a psychopath's ruthless need for revenge at any cost. I dunno how to describe it much more, but if you like violent and gritty sci-fi, you will like this a lot.

I did feel like the emotional potential of having this character pulled away from the machine-dependent world he'd lived in for so long was not mined as much as it could have been. And the whole Dragon thing (WTF IS THAT THING) was obscure in that classic sci-fi way to the point where I was slightly irritated, but I can't deny the interestingness of the world, the twistedness of the characters, and the adventure that drew me in.

This is the start of a long series, and I definitely know I'll be coming back to it when I want my hard sci-fi kick in the pants. Recommended!