This was not a terrible book but it was a very not good book, IMHO. Being in technology for over 35 years, I'm going to confess I have a hair trigger for books that just do a bad job with their description of tech and I probably should be more forgiving of a book written 23 years ago where much of the things he's writing about were in their early stages (MMOs, AI controlled devices, etc.).

Where things fell apart for me were mostly in the writing and not the technology which is way I gave up. My 2 big complaints:

1. The author was very inconsistent in what technology he decided to elaborate for the reader, because rightly he couldn't assume a high degree of knowledge on the part of the reader, the the things he didn't. He would often go into elaborate detail about what something meant where even in 2009 it was relatively commonplace and then completely skim past something that the person wouldn't know and could benefit from the explanation.

2. The daemon is supposed to be scary and smart but, honestly, his interactions with people were a rudimentary voice system that you deal with when you call the phone company. I could have gone along with a very sophisticated AI but something that requires yes or no answers that we're supposed to believe can react to real-time situations just doesn't hold up to even basic scrutiny.