I found this to be a very dense, layered novel. Not that the writing is complicated but that is charged with numerous concepts, plus the story is complex. There is Artificial Intelligence, Singularity, Transhumans, Posthumans (they are called the evil offspring, not sure how they evolved). Also through time, humans are able to upload their consciousness on simulated realities, or keep copies so they could be resurrected in new bodies. Because consciousness are now software, very much transportable and not dependable on meat bodies, people are able to do incredible things with themselves. For example forking, that's, creating multiple copies of themselves, which could become independent individuals or could synchronise back again into the original.
If the above wasn't enough, humans, are able to travel vast distances and meet other species and the technologies they leave around. I found, one of them, the Matrioshka brains super intrensting. Russian doll Dyson spheres the size of solar systems.
Two aspects of the story I couldn't follow much were the economic and legal aspects. The book criticises capitalism and dwells into legal terminology that lost me. One thing I understood and liked though was the idea of changing the Intellectual Property/Copyright paradigm towards AI, to Civil Rights perspective. The idea is further developed to include aliens.
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