Hm, I'd actually abandoned this book halfway through (something I rarely do) - partially because of what I considered serious voice issues in the first-person testimonies but also because I was frustrated with the seemingly contradictory technology (I went in thinking it was going to be set just a little in the future of our timeline, but then the robot servants were sprung on me, and then we're back to phreakers, but for some reason everyone has cell phones...) Now I'm tempted to pick it up again, however. Are things cleared up more in the second half?