This was a particularly interesting read for me, as I felt like I was enjoying the novel for things the author didn’t meant me to enjoy. The main character’s big fear, being infected with alien bio-machinery and slowly changed into something inhuman, was something I felt completely disconnected from. I did enjoy the bio-machinery, the strange and weird transformation Eden and her two associates went through, but this felt less like a source of genuine body horror (which I think was the intention), but the joy at seeing cool and neat transformations.
It probably depends on your reading protocols and interests, which in my case meant the changes, both body and mind, were the meat of the novel, as was the intriguing if somewhat lackluster exploration of an alien world. I found the super-rationalistic attitude of the main character amusing, and I’m not sure if that was intentional and to be taken serious or meant to be perceived as a character flaw. Also her constant resistance to the bio-machinery in her body was initially merely irritating until it became deeply annoying when it was established as the main thrust of the books final part.
Less convincing were the psychological changes. Sure, I completely buy that getting your brain blown up and then re-assembled by alien bio-machinery will force changes to your personality (and the part with the memories was neatly done), but I didn’t really bought that it would mean the characters would turn psychotic, just different.
On that account, I found the ending was the typical esoteric ending where the writer thought it was kind of positive and I though it was quite the opposite. If you write from the perspective of monsters (even if I don’t completely buy they are monsters), I want to see them succeed, accept what they are and go on with their lives of murder and mayhem. I’m a fan of happy endings.
The Entropy Pump 