Wired praised the book for being "written with the syntactic precision you might expect from a linguist, a computer scientist, a mathematician. Or a person who is all three" but criticized the "plot [that] may leave you scratching your head."
The Guardian criticized the chapters set in
virtual reality, writing that "as its storylines converge in virtual spaces, everything begins to seem ethereally confusing and abstract," but praises the other chapters, with their return "in the most satisfying of the various characters’ endings, to the physical realities of fire and steel." == References ==