This note contains spoilers for the book.

Hugo nominee, highly recommended in some quarters, and The Chronoliths had its strong points. On the other hand I've been warned about the ending.

On the other hand, it seems mystic and it's certainly rather dark. Still plenty of time to resolve in several different directions, and the ride is of some interest. I think it's about science and religion; at least I hope it is. We've got at least two people possessed by gods, or something that functions like gods. We've got dreams. And of course we've got the full-scale major miracle, where Europe gets replaced by a place of similar geography but non-terrestrial pland and animal life.

Wow, it gets much weirder. Though somehow much less convincingly so than Greg Egan. The whole book takes place in a virtual archive of all sentient life from great swathes of the universe. And it's become infected with "psilife" which destroys archive data. That's what produced the variant Earth, the Darwinian incursion (and apparently something similar on Mars; apparently the peaceful Martians will need our help).

Doesn't work very well, really.