This is not really a bad book. The story is well told, the ideas and characters fairly interesting, everything is wrapped up in a satisfactory way. So why damn it with faint praise? Because it is much much too long. Iain M. Banks is 'A Serious Writer' who has turned the humble Space Opera Sci-Fi novel into 'Great Art'. The dust jacket tells us that the book is 'a gymnasium for the imagination' and 'confirms Banks as the standard by which the rest of SF is judged'. All I can say to that is Bull! Other, lesser writers have said much more in far fewer words. To be verbose is not the same as being profound, nor is pretentious the same as clever.
Orbit, 403 pages