I’m writing these reviews sometimes years after having read these books.  My bookshelf now though is overflowing with science fiction books and it’s time to start taking them to the second-hand bookshop.  Rather than loose them entirely at least I’ll have a photo and a few thoughts to remember them by… and you may have guessed by now that I don’t remember much about this book, and even the back cover isn’t helping to jog the memory.

I do remember though that, as is often the case in modern sci-fi, the author successfully created a well threshed-out fantasy world brimming with detail.  Wait… I just remembered there was a space ship chase though some larger space city thing.  That was pretty good. On the whole I tend to prefer the older, shorter sci-fi books, but still I have to acknowledge the achievement.  Banks is not one of the most popular sci-fi authors for nothing.

I also remember the end was like an action-packed action movie – full of visual imagery with vehicles crashing and so on.  I don’t think this sort of thing works at all well in novels. Novel action and movie action are different things – please don’t ask me how though – I’m not a novelist.  I’m sure there are PhDs on the topic.

This is the first of the Culture novels.  I do recommend the second one though – The Player of Games.