Anax is standing before a panel of examiners, the three people who will decide her fate: will she be admitted to the Academy? Is her knowledge and understanding of her topic--Adam Forde, the historical figure whose actions may have changed the course of their utopian Republic--enough to prove herself worthy? 
 That's pretty much the whole story: the reader (or in my case, listener) gets the history of this culture as Anax understands it, without a lot of time spent on explaining the current culture. It's an interesting approach in its own right; the reader doesn't learn much about the society as it currently stands until the very end, when the truth about Adam's final decisions is revealed, along with what that means for Anax. 
 It's not the most engrossing plot, bogged down as it is in discussions of philosophy and ethics as they relate to the explosion of technology and AI. (This isn't set all that far off--2075, in a world both post-apocalyptic and plague-ridden.) There were elements of the ending I liked and elements that didn't quite fit, but overall this tied together very well. I enjoyed it but didn't love it, though I can think of a few people who would absolutely go bonkers for this academic utopian novel.