This book... made me itch.

It reads like a 1950s potboiler. The characters are cardboard stereotypes. The plot is hackneyed. And the central conceit, a system of incorporation, is a problem, because a) it's silly (WHY was this solution considered? HOW did it get introduced?) and b) social forces would have acted far sooner to challenge the central premise, without requiring the figurehead. The ridiculous figurehead.

Justin Cord is basically John Galt, frozen and petrified. The book reads like Ayn Rand fanfic, and the only bits which are truly original and compelling -- the VR plagues and the destruction of the old world -- are sidelined for a truly stupid fight between Justin and Hektor. And most of the time I was rooting for Hektor. If anything Hektor is the real protagonist in the novel, because he's fighting for a system he believes in against the inexorable force of the plot.

I think part of the reason I dislike this book so much is because it could have been great. The writing could have been better. The protagonist could have been more human (no-one gets to be Justin Cord without a little collateral damage), and the female interest could have been less of a cardboard cutout. The sidekick could have been anyone but a salty down to earth miner. More than that, the society isn't fully thought out -- yes, the VR precepts argue against true insanity, but a world 300 years in the future would resemble something out of Transmetropolitan than it would anything a present day human would understand.

As it is, it's a book by people who aren't writers, who make up a straw world, argue against a system that doesn't even hold up to cursory examination, then want you to act surprised when a godlike marysue character makes it falls over. Unimpressed.