The Merchants of Souls (Giraut)

Sequel to Earth Made of Glass. Disappointing. I wasn't terribly interested in the interactions between the characters (the major characters seemed obnoxious in uninteresting ways), and Barnes focused on them to the detriment of the plot. There was some food for thought about what humans will do after the Age of Scarcity (to borrow a Banks term), but the treatment is much less interesting than in an Iain M. Banks novel.

The way the plot wrapped up towards the end of the book smacked of a deus ex machina. I was left utterly unconvinced that such influential opposition could be so easily defeated, once the scheme was exposed.