I just read this in almost one go, on holiday in 2 days. I really liked it, though at times it felt a bit overstreched. Ok, the setting demanded that the story took about 30-40 years, but that neccesitated that quite some plot elements became simewhat moot. For example, the devices Pham Trinli uses to control everything are on the one hand ultra powerfull, but then he doesn't use their power for 30 years while his oponents chip at their code structure for all that time searching for his control interfaces, but not finding them. All this while those coders are said to be superhuman all the time.

Compared to Ken MacLeods "Learning the World" I liked his description of technology better, and also the reaction of the aliens to the technologically advanced humans and how that inspired their technological progress. This book has more character development, but I'm not sure I like it better.