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==Analysis and commentary==
''Singularity Sky'' has been the subject of some higher-level [[literary criticism]]. Veronica Hollinger of [[Trent University]] sees it as an example of what has been called New Baroque Space Opera, along with [[Iain Banks]]' ''[[Consider Phlebas]]'' and [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''[[Redemption Ark]]''. "[They] are contributing to a self-conscious revival, in new directions, of one of SF's oldest (and most denigrated) subgenres, constructing futures that—quite cheerfully, for the most part—reflect back to us the incredible complexity of the technoscientific present."<ref name="Postmodernism and science fiction">{{cite book|last=Hollinger|first=Veronica|title=A Companion to Science Fiction|year=2008|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=9780470797013|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PiphRocVYRwC&pg=PA244|editor=David Seed|accessdate=20 January 2013|page=244|chapter=Postmodernism and Science Fiction}}</ref>
Markus Öhman, an undergraduate education student at [[Luleå University of Technology]] in Sweden, has looked at how the novel deals with class and gender issues as they intersect the singularity. Rigid class distinctions, reinforced by a hereditary aristocracy, are a feature of life in the New Republic so marked that both Martin and Rachel express discontent and frustration with them. But outside that order class exists as well. Status among the revolutionaries is measured by one's understanding of, and level of commitment to, revolutionary ideology. And the Critics, in turn, have a hierarchy distinguished by knowledge—Sister Stratagems privately hopes that her oblique manner of speaking and commenting will give enough of an impression of knowledge as to allow her to become queen one day<ref name="Öhman 22">Öhman, 22.</ref>—and gender as well (the only male Critic we see is apparently relegated to a military role and rudely dismissed when he offers even a slight sentence of comment).<ref name="Öhman 19–20">Öhman, 19–20.</ref>
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