Fast-paced, quirky, Douglas Adams with-an-edge-and-a-PhD-in-physics-style SF. Stross takes the reader on a fast trip through post-modern Europe in the first third of the book, then halfway across the Solar System in the next third, and then into utterly unimaginable places from there, never losing his wicked sense of humor (and it is VERY wicked) or his acuity of vision in the posthuman, postsingularity, and ultimately postbiological future.
A damn good read.
Rudyard Kipling is the Homer of the English language. During his life he captured things no other poet of the English language had until then. His poetry still has the power to move the heart, and to those who have known the rigors and tragedy of war, to draw tears.
This book belongs in any English speaker's library. I'm delighted it's available online.