“I've tackled a lot of tough problems in my life, but I can't remember a single time I said to myself, You could fix this if you just had a few alternate realities.”

Wow. The first bit was superbly irritating because the world seems so impenetrable and almost too futuristic to be real. But after we see a little history in the shortest initiation I was raring to read the rest. It's a boldly painted world with Humanity on a rough, hard, diamond edge, not a relaxed tome or a pretty futuristic depiction as such. The technology is 'well cool'; the appendices are interesting reading and the sequel is going on my ereader now.