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The wheels of fate are spinning around.
Between them the souls of men are ground
Who strive for throats to make some sound
Of protest out of the mad profound
Trap of the godmachine!

Uniquely bizarre. Norstrilia delves into class struggle and stratification, culture and human adaptation, economics, and frankly, a whole bunch of themes. The prose is very good, but occasionally I felt a bit lost, like I was missing out on something important, which often is the case with these “classic�� novels (they tend to be very clever, and I tend to be, well, not).

The nature of the Instrumentalities universe is slowly revealed as the story progresses, with one large revelation following another. Everything feels very well established, even though not everything is clearly explained. The story alternates between delightful and dreadful, as the protagonist is carried along by events that are often none of his own making (even though on the surface they might appear to be). All in all, an impressive achievement, and a very well realised example of ��world universe building��.

I suspect that if I were a scholar I would give this book 5 stars, but as it stands I am going to have to settle for 4. I suspect that another read, at some point, will be in order. I enjoyed it, but I think there are some layers that I have yet to tap into.