God damn it! Sometimes I hate competent writers.

The whole book is basically an embodiment of the expanding mind meme. The book starts with a seriously tired and stupid cliche of We fucked our planet and we had to abandon it for a new planet. I was ready to forgive this one because I thought the author wanted to tell a story about isolation, immortality and infinity (which he did) but couldn't think of a good reason for the people to leave Earth. Then it continues to talk about AI, with all the cliches tied with this topic ever imagined. After that throwing an incredibly stupid bomb shell of an end of the universe and how everything is a simulation, only to continue to hack reality itself (the fact that the character didn't see this as a clear sign that he was in a simulation of his own making is astonishing) to then finish with post apocalypse Earth, Middle Earth and with a happily ever after that made me sick. To finish with a "twist ending" that most of us saw from the beginning.

End now to return to my first two sentences. This author is too good at writing human characters, their despair, their joy, their LIFE, that it compelled me to continue reading through the mountain of old cliches and just plain stupidity even though I knew where this was going since the moment the main character concocted the plan of a great escape. What I am trying to say is that the author failed at suspension of disbelief which is necessary for good SF.