author : John Meaney

I usually like to start these reviews with a quick flavour of the plot, a bit like a back-jacket blurb. But this book doesn't stick in my mind for its plot. There is one -- it's a parallel story of a mother searching for her son on a high-tech foreign world, and of the son searching for a way out of the high-tech problems he's got himself into. But after reading it, I'm left with a picture of the very high-tech world, and not a lot else. The characters, although certainly well-drawn, are totally overshadowed by all the marvellous tech.

Despite the massive amount of world-building, there is hardly any info-dumping at all. We learn about the tech through the story. And there's oodles of it -- the upraised Luculenti with their built-in computers, the Pilots and their fractal vision, the femto-bio-tech, the smartatoms, all weaved into the plot with throw-away lines. This is how it should be done -- showing, not telling. Book like this are the reason I read SF.

Amazingly enough, this is a first novel. I'm not saying there are no problems -- there are a few guns on walls at the start that have failed to go off by the end, but mostly everything is under control. I hope Meaney's later novels can keep up this excellent standard.

• Paragon panel discussion of the BSFA and Arthur C Clarke Awards shortlists