Comment Good, but not the best Culture book (Score 1) 232
I just finished this book today, and I agree with the review in that it wasn't Banks' best work. I still quite enjoyed it and thought it was well written, but I agree with some of the other comments that it was a bit too similar to some of his previous work - in a way it felt like a mix-and-match of elements of "Excession", "Use of Weapons" and "Inversions". There was also a large amount of background material that wasn't strictly necessary for the plot, though I wouldn't really call this a flaw since the setting and background was fairly interesting in itself.
Once issue affecting this book and most of Banks' other SF novels is his tendency to include too many long travel sequences and other unnecessary (or unnecessarily long-winded) scenes in the first 3/4 of the book, then to start rushing everything in the last 1/4 to bring things to a conclusion.
Overall I liked it but I think by the end I liked it a little less than I did at the half-way point, with the plot preceding a little too straight-forwardly (at least by Banksian standards). The ending was decent and there was one horrific image in particular that really stuck in my head but compared to someone like George R. R. Martin, Banks doesn't isn't a good enough writer of compelling characters to have the full impact he may have intended. His strengths lie more in fascinating, detailed settings and an enjoyable general writing style. I feel like the actual writing here was better than ever, but the "seen it all before" nature of the plot (and to some extent the setting) reduced my enjoyment a bit.
Once issue affecting this book and most of Banks' other SF novels is his tendency to include too many long travel sequences and other unnecessary (or unnecessarily long-winded) scenes in the first 3/4 of the book, then to start rushing everything in the last 1/4 to bring things to a conclusion.
Overall I liked it but I think by the end I liked it a little less than I did at the half-way point, with the plot preceding a little too straight-forwardly (at least by Banksian standards). The ending was decent and there was one horrific image in particular that really stuck in my head but compared to someone like George R. R. Martin, Banks doesn't isn't a good enough writer of compelling characters to have the full impact he may have intended. His strengths lie more in fascinating, detailed settings and an enjoyable general writing style. I feel like the actual writing here was better than ever, but the "seen it all before" nature of the plot (and to some extent the setting) reduced my enjoyment a bit.
