It's clearly early Sterling, but you can see the bones of his themes there -- world building led by a politician and thought leader rather than a technologist, bizarre pointillist relationship patter, the youthful mad urge to self-immolate, the tendency of the old to placid routine to better hide their terrifying competence in the face of chaos.

That being said, there's mawkishness in here as well -- the conflict between Abelard and Constantine is manufactured and handled like a set piece and it would be damn near impossible to confuse identities and pasts given the ubiquity of DNA and general curiosity of the public -- but it stands up much better than most other futureshock.