I seriously considered giving this 6 stars, but in the end decided against it. The book starts out great, the middle maintains the greatness, but at the end there's a slight drop-off. First of all, major characters are still being introduced very late in the game. I'm referring here to Robin and Brian mostly. It takes some of the energy off when you wanna know what happens next to the characters you know, and instead there's pages and pages about totally unknown people and you have no idea how they fit into the grand scheme of things.

Then there's the fact that some things are set up and never go anywhere. The Axon stuff, for example. After Enid doesn't send off the signed letter granting use of the patent, there's this big thing made about what a huge company Axon turns out to be and how central a position the patent holds in their future product, and you're sure that they'll end up trying to get millions from Axon, and what happens instead? Absolutely nothing. The matter is never mentioned again, other than a lame "Well I sent a second letter"...

Other things are left kinda half-solved, as well. The whole Alfred situation is unclear. First we spend 650 pages worrying about how his worsening condition is going to be handled, and then at the last two pages he's just packed off to professional care and that turns out to be workable? Then what was the problem in the first place?

It's probably not a good idea to give book five stars and then spend the first 3 paragraphs complaining about it. It's just that the book is so close to greatness that the minor flaws that stop it from attaining that greatness are really in focus. If this were a slightly worse book, would I feel the need to point out in so many words what's wrong with it? Not a chance.