Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson has aspects of "who pays for the digital afterlife and who gets to control it?" as well.
And Surface Detail for a pretty gruesome depiction of what happens if you do a public-private partnership for hell.
I really struggled to get into this; I’ve had several people recommend it. How far do you think it’s important to read before deciding it’s not for me?
It's not important for you to read it at all. Skip it.
I usually like Stephenson quite a bit, but I couldn’t get through this one either.
I just quickly paged through it to try to answer this. I'd say peak engagement for me when I couldn't wait to find out what happened next was around 60% of the way in, but I was fully engaged from the beginning, I read it over 2 days.
I'd support qup's comment, there's too many good books in the world to drudge your way through a book that doesn't click :)
I think that’s fair! I am currently in a phase where I’m struggling to find something to pull my interest. I often reevaluate things I’ve put down before if the right commentary pulls me back in. I might give it another shot to see if I can hit that mark. Thanks for the insight!
It wasn't Egan's best, from a storytelling perspective, but the ideas were juicy enough to keep me engaged.
You also might like the later Bobiverse books.
Really like the authors style. He has a new book too.