So, all in all, the book pretty much met my expectations. The main attraction, as suggested by the threads that it spawns with its cousins, is found in the political systems inhabited by the characters. Given the poor mode-matching between the book's focus and my personal interests, it was pretty much doomed to fail- I was basically unimpressed by the writing and plotting.

So, as a review, my conclusion has to be "It's a book that will be well liked by those who like that sort of thing." There's no denying that the social and political systems depicted for the Solar Union and New Mars are cleverly constructed, and if speculation about anarchist utopias is your thing, this is the book for you. The plot ends up being a bit thin due to all the time spent on the politics, and the whiz-bang ending doesn't really make up for that, so if you're after rollicking politicized space opera, you'd be better off digging up some old Heinlein.

Thoughts? Comments? I probably won't bother with any of his other books unless a fair number of people I trust tell me that the balance between politics and plot shifts between this book and the others.

(Originally posted at The Library of Babel.)