Recursion by Tony Ballantyne

This is the book groups selection for April. I'm not entirely certain how or why it passed the convoluted and rather involved voting process, but it did. So I read it (how could I not?)

The story begins with Herb, who is re-visiting a planet where he planted a Von Neumann Machine (a self replicating AI) programmed to convert the planet into a city without anybody knowing. Unfortunately for him, his grand plan failed and he has destroyed the planet. Double unfortunate for him, the Environmental Agency (EA) does know about it and Herb becomes acquainted with Robert Johnston who gives him the option of spending the rest of his life floating in liquid gel as computer constructs of his mind work in the Oort Cloud or to follow Robert and save the universe.

The story then moves over to Eva. Eva lives in a world where everything she does is watched. She desires escape. She plans a vacation to Marseilles that ends...somewhat differently than what she planned. There she meets Katie Kirkham, child genius. Nicholas and Allison who convince her they must all escape the Watcher.

And last we have Constantine. Constantine is carrying around three personalities in his head and is on a two year secret mission. He finds out that he is actually a computer simulation caught by a rival company and that his own company wishes to destroy this version of him very, very badly.

The three story lines do come together at the conclusion of the book, where the reader finds out some moderately interesting little twists. I didn't find this book to be wholly gripping or a "must read" (mind you, I just finished Cyteen and that is coloring my opinion). The three story lines had their problems, especially when they came together, and the plot needed a bit of work, but overall it was a satisfactory story that moved along and kept my interest.