I was surprised by how much I didn't care about this book. It's similar to Wool in some ways -- strong plot, lots of flying around and jumping up and down and running from bad guys in a tight resource constrained environment... but everyone (bar the Viridians) are so HUMAN. So American, even. You could almost believe they're in a small town in the midwest, what with "Joe Spud" and the hard scrabble life.

This is what lets down the story -- these guys have nanotech. They have nanocameras watching their every move for the sake of a reality TV show. They have a reputation based management system. And yet... it's still not even half as good at reality shear as Bruce Sterling on his worst day. It reads like a soap opera. And the intrepid group of 17 year olds who always find themselves in the middle of the action for no good reason doesn't help.