Science fiction always presents a great time to be had, in my experience. There’s a host of concepts and ideas that take shape, from utopias to dystopias, robots, diseases, space travel, and more. The limits only exist within one’s own imagination, and that’s as true here as it is elsewhere.

I really liked what Eston did with the concept of a shared virtual space where everything can, theoretically, last forever. Combining it with the parasitic nature of capitalist greed and the violence it enacts on the community? That was just the cherry on top of a wonderful journey that took me down quite a few interesting roads in this novel.

Moreover, the book excels on a technical level as well. Keidi and Artenz, our main characters, are as lively and interesting as anyone else, and the supporting cast is just as dynamic. They work well together, acting as foils for each other and perspectives from which we learn about Prominence City and the Underground. The issue of Keidi’s pregnancy is surprisingly subtle, given the central mystery, but never far from the surface, and Artenz’s own naïveté gets its own time in the sun to grow and develop into something else.

The only thing I didn’t like was the way it seemed to breeze through a few mysteries that needed more explanation, like what was going on in the Dominance. Eston teases us with the knowledge that there’s something more going on than just what he reveals in the end, but he never truly expands on that. Instead, he leaves it ambiguous, choosing to end the novel quickly in an extended epilogue that left me feeling more than a little unsatisfied.

I don’t know what to do with that, to be honest with you. I want more out of this book, but the end seemed a bit too final for that, albeit unsatisfactorily so. Still, it’s a good read, and fun too if you’re looking for something more than a little unsubtle about current and future economic prospects. It’s definitely worth reading more than once.