Matter
by Iain M. Banks
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Book Summary Information
Author: Iain M. BanksEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-02-27
ISBN: 0316005363
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Orbit
Book Reviews of Matter
Book Review: Fascinatingly Boring
Summary: 2 Stars
This story, set in Banks' Culture universe, follows three siblings from a world where firearms is a recent invention. The brothers are princes of a people on this world, and for a long time, the story mostly follows their adventures on the world itself.
The princess is now a Culture citizen, and we follow her adventures as well.
Obviously, the three interchanging stories are related to a central plot, but my main problem with the book is that although the Culture chapters are fascinating in general, the other story archs could just as well have appeared in a fantasy or historical novel. They just don't feel like science fiction and leaves me lacking a sense of wonder and awe.
Add to this that the plot isn't that original and chugs along at a slow pace, and you've got a book that's vaguely fascinating in places, but mostly just boring.
The book is almost 600 pages long, but could have easily been trimmed down to 200-300 pages without losing much of the overall plot.
Although I must admit that I find it refreshing to read far-future SF where mankind, for once, is at the top of the galactic food chain, it's also the Culture universe's biggest narrative problem, because Banks has to seek conflict and intrigue in other places, but as a reader, you fail to become engaged.
Given that the book does contain some good SF ideas and concepts, it's intriguing that the result is so dull as is the case.
Summary of Matter
In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has changed almost beyond recognition to become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy.
Concealing her new identity - and her particular set of abilities - might be a dangerous strategy, however. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.
MATTER is a novel of dazzling wit and serious purpose. An extraordinary feat of storytelling and breathtaking invention on a grand scale, it is a tour de force from a writer who has turned science fiction on its head.
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