“The Swiss disappeared,” he sighed, “but Star Trek lives on. Go figure.”

This was a crackingly enjoyable story, with a pretty cool idea behind it. The whole concept of Incorporation is a little tricky to get your head around, but the social degradation due to the VR onslaught totally provides an ironclad reason for a tectonic shift in society. There are even some compelling arguments put forth for the whole system to actually work.

But, of course, there's a spanner in the works of this postmodern, seemingly successful civilization, and that's a cryogenically frozen hot shot from the twenty-first century, discovered buried in an abandoned mine, revived into a world very different from his.

This clicks together very nicely. The technology is cleverly thought out, emphasis is placed, not just on the tech, but the Humanity and psychology gets as much of a look in. There's a load of politics and power, and also some very real thoughts about where government's going and the consequences of encroaching on freedom.

I did feel that the end sort of walks up and bashes you over the head rather suddenly, but that is only a very slight minus in a story so otherwise full of good things.