All the ideas in this story could have been done as a short story or novella. The only reason it is a long as it is, is because the author insists on stuffing every sentence with layer after layer after interminable layer of clever, but basically useless and undiscriptive, verbiage that seems to serve no other purpose than to stretch the story to novel length for the sake of the publisher. One almost wonders if Clute wrote this or if he is merely presenting the product of some piece of experimental story writing software hooked up to an unabridged dictionary and a thesaurus.