A potentially cool idea that Stross just doesn't pull off. The incompetent shrew club muscling in on the old boys club was also pretty tiresome. Especially since it was the basis of much of the underlying plot. And Mo may be smart but she's about as useless as Kira, the love interest from Hard to be a God by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky (unrelated book, I know, but I was reading it at about the same time).