This is the novel’s grace note, Egan’s assertion that the authentic can still spark and flare even when the entire apparatus surrounding it is calculated and artificial. Of course she thinks this, and why shouldn’t she be right? What else is an artist but someone who believes that she can barter a little piece of herself to the world and not only preserve its essential worth, but even multiply it, by sharing it with others? She has to hope that the machinery making it all possible won’t kill the thing itself. Because that machinery isn’t going away, even if it does assume new forms and new powers to go with those forms. It’s more than just the way we live now, it is the world we’ve made for ourselves, out of our selves. Like it or not, we’re stuck with us.