This book features Sterling’s trademark rapid-fire illustrative language, but he plotting is much weaker than in his previous dystopian novels Heavy Weather and Holy Fire. The five surviving “caryatids”, results of an illegal cloning project during a massive climate crisis, are spread around the world. This gives Sterling a number of locations to basically tell a thriller story and infodump at the same time.
As idea-driven SF it’s great, as a novel, not so much. Recommended if you’re a Sterling fan though!