I'm reading The Algrebraist at the moment but some of the themes you mention crop up elsewhere.
The Cassini Division by Ken McLeod pits meatspace humans against post-humans in and around the purlieus of our very own gas giant.
Replicated minds, accelerated mental processing and wormholes to boot, great read.
Light by John Harrison is a great mind bender and once you're into it, you're off into the void salvaging the dodgy scrap and equally iffy old tech of long gone species. The ship's pilot, Seria Mau gets around in much the same way as Fassin does when he's Delving only the AI's aren't such an abomination in Light.
The math is cooler in Light than The Algebraist, it does tricks.
Greg Egan's Diaspora pretty much bails on biology entirely and has everybody uploaded by 2975 with an option on exosuits if you must play in the dirt. Then it gets technical and you've never seen such liberties taken with ideas from science (duly listed in the references). Our species doesn't so much become ancient as incredibly distant in a whole new way.
Hope these aren't too far off-topic but they kept me going in-between Banks' books.
MC
