This was a book club read, and specifically one that I recommended and pushed for. But I must say, if it hadn’t have been, I probably wouldn’t have finished. I found it a challenging book to read on many levels. The writing can be quite sparse (sometimes I had no idea who was talking or who was being referred to), the scene-changes are abrupt, and of course it’s riddled with jargon. I can only imagine how much MORE difficult it would have been to read this in the ‘80s, when all of the terms were even more esoteric than they are now. Also, there was a lot more gratuitous sex and violence than I would have expected, often coming out of nowhere. I didn’t really care about any of the characters, and I’m still not sure that their big goal was actually a good idea. All that said, I can absolutely see how this was a seminal book in the sci-fi genre, and how much of pop culture (and, indeed, real life) was shaped by it. I’m glad to have read it, but I have absolutely no desire to ever read it again.