Stations of the Tide, by Michael Swanwick
Nice rich surreal controlled-ultratech novel
(Review posted 21 Mar 2006 11:41:43)

So let's see; I waited entirely too long between finishing this and writing it up, but we'll give it a try.

It's the future, and something very odd has happened to Earth, presumably due to runaway technology. Humanity has spread to other planets, and a bureaucracy with institutions named things like The Stone House and The Puzzle Palace has a division called Technology Transfer that tries to keep this, whatever it was, from happening to the rest of humanity. On the outskirts of the solar system, humans have carefully-controlled contact with Earth, in the form of a huge enigmatic Sphinx. After talking to Earth, you have to let the bureaucracy examine your memories and expunge anything they find disturbing there.

In this context, a bureaucrat comes to one human world, one which has tragically abused technology in the past and so has had even more of it than usual taken away, in search of someone who (probably, or perhaps) has smuggled in something forbidden and is abusing it. The world is a strange and rich one, and it's about to undergo a phase-change, in which the seas rise to engulf nearly all the land, and all the life on the planet transforms into watery alternate forms, or dies. There are wild last parties, cities being hastily disassembled, lost fortresses slowly sinking under the water, enchantresses and wizards and demons who may be technology-enhanced, or hallucinations, or only rumors. (There's also some nice memorable sex.)

So anyway, the bureaucrat moves through this world on this mission, assisted by his high-tech talking and transforming briefcase, and various odd and interesting things happen. Eventually he encounters the person he was searching for (more or less), and finds out just what is really going on (more or less). And he and the briefcase both undergo transformations of their own.

It's a good book, a memorable book, a book with fascinating images and ideas, where technology blurs into deity and myth, and I can't recall a single nit to pick. You should read it.