A review by capellan
Matter by Iain M. Banks

3.0

It was interesting to read this book soon after Joe Abercrombie's Half a King, because both start with similar setups - the dishonorable death of a warrior king and the quest of his most definitely not a warrior son to avenge him - but they go in very, very, very different directions thereafter. Abercrombie's book is much more direct and personal in scale, while Banks, as usual, uses a much more elaborate structure, with a galaxy-ranging scale with a mass of dense setting-building. I've been a fan of Banks's work for nigh on 30 years, now, and I continue to love how willing he was to take structural and narrative risks, but I think this is one of those times where he let his predilections get away from him. Much like Stonemouth, which came out a few years later, this is a book with too much setup and too little conclusion. I enjoyed it as I was reading it, because Banks could write, but the whole is rather less than the sum of its parts, I feel.