Sorry to be wrench in the works but I hated this book...even though I did finish it.It had me hooked when the first few pages contained some very cool concepts:Super beings looking in on a collapsing universe and rooting for the hyper-evolved intelligences contained therein to achieve a sort of godhood--I'm loving all that.Somewhere near the middle I realized with dread that the author was going NOWHERE with any of it.The book changes reality frames so randomly and often that I just couldn't believe any of it.That kind of thing can work if the author lays the groundwork to make it feel plausible (so masterfully done in John C. Wright's "The Golden Age"), but Broderick just doesn't bother with the legwork.The tech is never explained or even differentiated from fairy tale magic. The characters hardly have a chance to interact before they're hurled off into another reality and have to deal with it.It's hard to get involved with any situation when you know the carpet can be pulled out at any second.
If someone asked me to explain the plot I really couldn't tell them.It's one of those books where a bunch of stuff happens and the characters react to it.The main character certainly has no plan other than exploring and scoring with babes, and the superintelligent players of "the game" NEVER explain what "the game" even is.This is actually what kept me slogging throught to the end.Surely he'll tell me what "the game" is since that's the very reason the characters even exist.But I guess that was asking too much. I had a feeling it involved apposing the "K-machines", but the book pretty much ignores that angle in favor of jumping around "Sliders" style.
Most frustrating of all was the main character who I grew to hate passionately. He gets hurled into a multiverse of super beings and acts like he's at a neighborhood barbeque. He NEVER asks the kinds of questions an actual person would.At the rare occaisions when he gets a chance to talk with friendly characters I'd be mentally screaming at him, "Ask what the hell is going on, you fool!" but he always managed to find other distractions more important than the things crucial to his survival.By the end I was rooting for his death.If we had a Darwin award for fictional characters, he'd be a shoo-in.
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