There was an April Fool report going around a couple of years back that Charlie Stross had transcended. Reading this book you can understand why. Its not particularly well written, in a formal literature sense, but it is full of people, and examines the clash of two very different civilisations. Both significantly advanced from our own, but one very much rooted in our materialist, capitalist mindset and one where most of the things we hold dear are no longer relevant.
At some level, its just more trash scifi, easy to read, not too taxing, introducing its concepts slowly, not assuming anything about the reader, at another level its got some depth of thought behind it, opening up two coherent world-views (or universe-views) and what each sees of the other. It is a step forward from what SL4-ers think of scifi, but its still a pre-singularity view.
Who should read this? Anyone who likes nice easy reading science fiction.