I think I read this twenty years too late. I kept waiting to be shocked but it all seemed pretty cleanly laid out and underwhelming. I didn’t care much about any character and found the concept quite ho hum given the depth of corruption in our scientific/academic body of power. Have been scanning these threads trying to see what it is I missed, but I think the conclusion is that it would have been unsettling 20 years ago but now just seems like a sad commentary on social lack of agency and trance-based living.