You know, its quite interesting to see someone else's different take on the 'Fast Minds' portrayed in the book. From what we gather (and this isnt a spoiler as its detailed about a 1/3rd of the way through the book) the uploaded consciousness of the 'Fast Minds' arent AI at all, but rather humans who have evolved into being so far _removed_ from humans as to be 'considered' AI. (there is AI in the form of certain robots on the 'colony' planet, but that is hardly 'emerging' at any rate:]
So from _that_ perspective its not really a book all about humanity Vs some alien threat (AI/unknown alien destroyers/Y2k) but more a look at humanity Vs humanity (also re-enforced by the Progressive Communism Vs Libertarianism Vs Fascism and also the Continuation vs Rebirth theme)
The only true 'alien' in this book (or the series of these books) is the aliens that man creates _from_ man.
StefZodiak
ps. the setting is _very_ descriptive of Glasgow (Scotland) which is refreshing. pps. the cassini division is probably our favourite from the entire series. DONT miss it out.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, its quite interesting to see someone else's different take on the 'Fast Minds' portrayed in the book. From what we gather (and this isnt a spoiler as its detailed about a 1/3rd of the way through the book) the uploaded consciousness of the 'Fast Minds' arent AI at all, but rather humans who have evolved into being so far _removed_ from humans as to be 'considered' AI. (there is AI in the form of certain robots on the 'colony' planet, but that is hardly 'emerging' at any rate :]
So from _that_ perspective its not really a book all about humanity Vs some alien threat (AI/unknown alien destroyers/Y2k) but more a look at humanity Vs humanity (also re-enforced by the Progressive Communism Vs Libertarianism Vs Fascism and also the Continuation vs Rebirth theme)
The only true 'alien' in this book (or the series of these books) is the aliens that man creates _from_ man.
StefZodiak
ps. the setting is _very_ descriptive of Glasgow
(Scotland) which is refreshing.
pps. the cassini division is probably our
favourite from the entire series. DONT miss it
out.