[vundercind]

That was so good it convinced me that one correct way to make a good sci fi novel is to construct a world and then add one insane thing and make it fit.

FWIW, for calibrating recommendations, I tend to prefer literary sci fi and end up hating a whole lot of highly-praised-online sci fi novels. I really like that novel, and Watts’ short story that retells The Thing. That’s all I’ve read of his.

[edit] For further calibration, I'd say the book's strengths are efficiency (above-average editing and/or author's taste of what to write and what not to); action writing that is very much to my taste, being quick and terse and requiring close attention to follow it (almost like action-poetry) but not actually being unclear; and an excellent core sci-fi concept, which I usually don't rate so important an aspect as (I think) a lot of sci-fi readers, but in this case it's so good that it overcomes my usual "well that's nice, but has almost nothing to do with whether it's good" attitude toward that element. It's weak on characters, but is so busy with other things that it's hard to tell whether that's a general weakness of the author, or whether that simply didn't make it to the page in this case. World-building is sufficient, but also kind of not the focus of the story—there's plenty there to support the story, but no more.