Greatly enjoyed this, compelling reading. Good mix of sci-fi techniques; crazy alien worlds, human psychological reactions to future tech like longevity treatments and teleportation. Richly imagined universe that still boils down to understandable human actions.

The story structure, six separate tales interlinked, feels a bit like a cheat. I sort of wondered if it was a shortcut for the author or a way to avoid the challenge of building a coherent novel length narrative. But in retrospect and having read some of the sequel I think that's unfair. Certainly most of the stories are well told, and they do hang together and construct a larger narrative in a successful way. Much enjoyed.