Hear, hear. It starts with the birthing of a new AI, the proceeds to its education, its migration into a physical form, its migration into space, the migration into encoded form based on the geometry of a biological organism -- and all of this ancillary to the central plot.

It is a fantastic book, but unfortunately (as far as I can tell) seems to be out of print in paperback, which is a shame.

If you have an American Amazon account, you can get most of Greg Egan's books on Kindle for $2 a pop.