This was a very short book. I appreciate the brevity of the writers of yore, nonetheless I felt it could have done with some fleshing out - especially at the end. Perhaps, reading it from today's perspective, I felt some of the premises to be prepostorous. It was, however, solidly written and strongly plotted.

One other minor quibble, I felt like I could tell when the author's shifted from one to the other.

I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me a bit of Lord of Light but with believable science. This was, I believe, the fourth book of the Radix tetrad. Attanasio wanted to write a book based on each of the dimensions and time was the final one. What was interesting was his science, it's hard to make a novel about time travel and have it make sense on a technical level, but I found this novel quite plausible.

He writes in a lyrical manner, almost mythical in nature. It was pleasing, but left little in the way of characterization. The book follows many stories (since it encompasses such a huge timeline) and that also left little room for character development. However, my biggest knock against the book was the last 100 pages. I felt the book climaxed too early and just kind of fizzled out in the end.

Overall, though, a very solid outing. I strongly recommend the book and will be trying others by this author.

This was a great book. The writing was clear, which I found surprising considering the size of the novel. The pacing was good, it felt like an "epic" in that it slowly built the tension. I was surprised by how well he worked the unique idea of technology zones of the galaxy. I thought it would end up being hokey, but it was actually very well done. I thought about quibbling about the tines race and how I think parts of his creation of the pack mind were unplausible, but after I finished reading the book, I found this only a very minor thing....highly recommended book!

Wow, what a disappointment this book turned out to be. Don't get me wrong, it's a solid book but not near the amazing piece of literature I was expecting. I suppose this book started the cyberpunk revolution, but I didn't find him near as "cutting edge" as everyone made him out to be - even taking into account the year it was published.

First, the plot felt like it was "tacked" on so Gibson could show us his, admittedly, good use of imagery (the main character is hired by someone to do a job, but his employer is not quite what he seems - original eh?). Imagery does not a novel make, though, and I've read earlier stuff from many authors (e.g. Harlan Ellison) that had better imagery and even seemed more "punk".

Secondly, although the style was strong, it masked a lack of depth to the characters. The style was reminiscent of dark mystery writing, without the personality of some of the characters in those novels.

Finally, I was surprised how the computer stuff wasn't even that original - even in the year it was published. I believe, however, it did coin some phrases including "matrix".

So why did it sweep all those awards? I suppose because at the time it was published it was viewed as "prophetic" - probably the fact that it got a lot of mainstream attention helped too.