Mph. It followed a pretty standard heist format--which is perfectly fine! I like a good heist!--but I had difficulty keeping track of the moving parts of the heist as planned, so when the underheist was revealed, it was not satisfying and clever, but instead mostly confusing. I think this book might benefit from re-reading, but I'm not sure I want to reread it. The characters felt a little bit stale and remote--which, again, is fine if the focus is on something like clever heist mechanics, but since we've already established that the mechanics fell a bit flat for me, the book suffered from the weak characters.

What was brilliant, however, was the deeply fucked-up Puppet society. Puppets are a population of humans who were genetically engineered to feel religious awe for their historic ruling class, the Numens. However, for various reasons involving genetic drift and unforeseen consequences and the Numens basically being really, really dumb in building themselves a society of slaves who worship them as gods, the Puppet society has evolved into something utterly bizarre. The way the book plumbs the depth of that creepiness as events unfold was really, really great. So, in the end, I'd recommend this book on the basis of that component of the plot. Cripes, what a creepy bunch of weirdos those Puppets are.