The only real problem with that book--and it's a big one--is that the main character is The Competent Man, and all kinds of story things basically don't matter

The only real problem with that book--and it's a big one--is that the main character is The Competent Man, and all kinds of story things basically don't matter because we know, ahead of time, that everything will work out. Some of the ideas are played with really well: the whole notion of stock and whatnot, the touch on how terrible VR could be, and so forth. There's a lot of dumb stuff too, though: no real exploration of the space stuff worth mentioning, no real character development (characters are basically static, even the evil ones--compare with, say, Doctorow's Makers), awkward singularity/AI plot points... It's not a bad book, and it has some fun ideas in it, but it's not a great execution (as has been said).