Here it is, my 100th book of the year. Just in time for New Year's eve. This was definitely an ambitious book, but one that fell short. Rajaniemi should take lessons from Gibson and Vinge in restraining his experiments and ideas from leaving the reader too far behind. The climactic final act reads like a garbled mess of terms collected on the way. Unlike Gibson's Neuromancer, which held the reader somewhere close to the edge of meaning, but well enough inside to keep you interested, Rajaniemi dives straight off the edge leaving the reader wondering just what the hell he's talking about anyway.

At least it's not as alienating as Finnegan's Wake, but it could've used a little reworking to make it a more comprehensible, since the story did seem fairly interesting. The fact that I read that last 200 pages in a sitting despite my ongoing confusions is testament to its narrative appeal. The blurbs in the book say it was THE scifi debut of 2010. I only found it by browsing the shelves at the bookstore. Ultimately, feels like a debut scifi writer trying too hard to impress. Don't know that I'll want to go on to the Fractal Prince, not without some kind of glossary to help me brush up on all the terms.