This is my least favorite of Doctorow's novels. There are some very interesting elements and characters, but the protagonist's family is a little too bizarre for my taste (just for starters, he is the son of a washing machine and a mountain), and there are three or four too many characters in all. The mythology is never explained or even expanded enough to allow for a suspension of disbelief. I enjoyed some of the writing quite a lot (e.g., the opening section was very absorbing), but it didn't keep my interest well overall.