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A review by mferber
Matter by Iain M. Banks
4.0
Not the finest of Banks's Culture novels (though probably the longest), but quite good anyway. Banks is such a skillful and inventive writer that "Matter" held my interest throughout, even though the characters are for the most part thinly developed and unmemorable, and even though the plot takes too long to develop and far too little to resolve, even then leaving some big questions open. Despite all that, the Culture universe is as usual fun to hang out in, just to see what kinds of things Banks comes up with. "Matter" is also a good example of one of the things Banks does well and often: linking small, human stories in unexpected ways to grand events of cosmic scope. Recommended, but for Culture fans only, definitely not as a starting point.
(The meaning of the title is explained, in a fashion, about halfway through the novel, in a philosophical dialogue that has no obvious relation to the rest of the story. I suspect, as I often do after finishing an Iain Banks novel, that I may have missed a great deal.)
(The meaning of the title is explained, in a fashion, about halfway through the novel, in a philosophical dialogue that has no obvious relation to the rest of the story. I suspect, as I often do after finishing an Iain Banks novel, that I may have missed a great deal.)