Structurally, there’s four different kinds of chapters:
-context, which is what it sounds like, worldbuilding provided through ads and conversations overheard or smells, sights, sounds. Continuity is the actual plot, alternating between two viewpoints.
-the happening world
This seems like mostly informational context, just as it sounds, stuff that’s happening in the world
-tracking with closeups
Basically side character stories unfolding

Taken together the compartmentalizations worked well and seamlessly for me. This wasn’t novel to me so it wasn’t confusing as it was for others, and I have no complaints. I think I prefer worldbuilding built into the prose rather than this arrangement, but as a proto-cyberpunk work, it feels very ahead of it’s time and fascinating.

The actual plot was a bit convoluted. It’s more feminist and inclusive than I expected by far, ironically less fetishistic of minorities than the prime cyberpunk works, really. It does a great job showing the moral and ethical value of a citizenry to not allow itself to mollified. It’s very punk in it’s values and interweaves multiple kinds of espionage with rise of the corporate America. It’s commendable that it’s so accurate in its predictions.

However, speculation before contemporary times is not something I put much value in. What do I benefit now from nodding along now seeing how he was right or wrong? The craft is what matters, and the worldbuilding isn’t totally convincing despite the predictive qualities it is imbued with. Street vernacular is terrible. Dialogue is uneven. Benefits of hindsight make some things ludicrous, such as overpopulation issue solutions and what not—even if the feeling and malaise is captured very well.

It’s sometimes quite plodding, but the prose is more than strong enough to propel me, despite, as mentioned, some wildly bad dialogue at times. We might be beyond its relevance in many ways. Speculative fiction now obviously is more in tune with things and the style is better. It’s a book for older generations (and that’s fine).

This almost was a four star read but the problem is that it is so ambitious in its structure as well as the overall message, worldbuilding, and speculation… that it just succeeds and does not exceed the expectations it sets for the reader