most sci-fi writers, I've found, can't write women for shit. one could speculate about the geekiness of men writing the novels and their inabilities to form relationships, but I'm not going to.

I definetly agree about the depth of the book...I read it as a Jerry Bruckheimer novel. I read it like the mind candy it was. It was zany fun. (I really enjoyed the pokes at activist groups as well :-))