Finished Adam Roberts' Gradisil. Roberts is that rare thing, a SF writer who doesn't think that sophistication means copping the storytelling techniques of the mainstream thriller or soap opera. His stories are genuinely complex, challenging and compelling on the human level, while being sufficiently mindblowing as SF too. I find it ridiculous when hard SF nuts who swallow Niven's grotesque structures without a qualm suddenly pick nits with things like the electromagnetic craft of this novel when what they're really unhappy with is that this isn't a simple rugged-individualists vs. monolithic-evil narrative and there are no sexy redheads for the hero to bed, and indeed, no hero in sight.