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A review by tombomp
Matter by Iain M. Banks
3.0
I feel almost churlish complaining about this but like it just... ends? It's a pretty long book and then the ending just comes with no explanation, leaving a decent amount unresolved. It reminds me most of the first book in the series, I think.
The lead up to it is interesting - the drama on a small section of a giant world and how that's connected to the greater alien species and the various machinations etc. And the ending is sort of appropriate and kind of resolves stuff and it's not quite as grim as but it's still an anti climax, especially coming after such a long build up. Like (major ending spoilers>
I had a LOT of trouble visualising the geography of stuff, particularly the in between the levels stuff - the ending scenes in particular I had no clue what was going on but also the nestworld.
I mean it was good writing and there was some cool stuff (although not as good as some of the others of his I've read imo) but the ending was just a big disappointment to me. Maybe I was expecting too much, I dunno.
I will say I appreciated the glossary/appendix although I didn't notice it until too late, heh.
The lead up to it is interesting - the drama on a small section of a giant world and how that's connected to the greater alien species and the various machinations etc. And the ending is sort of appropriate and kind of resolves stuff and it's not quite as grim as
Spoiler
Consider PhlebasSpoiler
did the other aliens contesting the Oct know that the thing was Bad and that's why they tried to warn the prince? if they did, did anyone else know? what was going on there? What was the Thing all about, we get an explanation but it gives the start of a sort of villain speech which SOUNDS like it'd be interesting but gets cut off right at the interesting part. What was up with the ship they were using. Why did the thing want to kill the world god first. Why was there an ENTIRE CITY on the planet apparently dedicated to something that when activated would try and destroy the planet? Who made the city? How did the thing arrive there? How did it get deactivated? How did it survive so long?I had a LOT of trouble visualising the geography of stuff, particularly the in between the levels stuff - the ending scenes in particular I had no clue what was going on but also the nestworld.
I mean it was good writing and there was some cool stuff (although not as good as some of the others of his I've read imo) but the ending was just a big disappointment to me. Maybe I was expecting too much, I dunno.
I will say I appreciated the glossary/appendix although I didn't notice it until too late, heh.