"The sftnal [sic] version of this would go something like this: "a story gets increasingly stfnal [sic] to the extent that..."

Corey needs to get an editor or stop using chatgpt.

I just finished Polostan, and I think Doctorow's review is spot-on, nice to see another writer I like quite a bit so enthusiastic about both the strengths and quirks of the novel. I hadn't thought about it, but he and Stephenson both have a sometimes charming, sometimes maddening tendency to interject rambling discussions of things they have gotten personally interested in into their works, more so than most other SF authors I read (maybe Kim Stanley Robinson should be on that list too, realistically).