Much like Blindsight, this whole reading experience was pretty head scratching. Peter Watts really puts the 'hard' in hard science fiction. You have to pay meticulous attention to every sentence and detail during moments of action to maintain a grasp of what is actually happening. Paragraphs will be devoted to complicated exposition of the state of technology while narrative driving moments will be tacked on to the end of a sentence. The whole reading experience was exhausting, but that isn't anything new if you read the first book.

But with that being said, I did find this to be more comprehensible in its story and messaging than Blindsight was. The narrative was compelling and had me excited to see what would happen next. Watts is fantastic at weaving philosophy into his narrative and forces you to deeply reflect on the implications of the world he has built as well as our own world. Despite it being an exhausting read, I thoroughly enjoyed this and would recommend to science lovers and philosophy lovers, with a tentative recommendation to science fiction lovers ;)