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Matter

Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit
Category: Book

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

66 reviews
Sales Rank: 664

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.5 x 2

ISBN: 1841494178
EAN: 9781841494173
ASIN: 1841494178

Publication Date: January 31, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Customer Reviews: Read 61 more reviews...

2 out of 5 stars

Anti Climax August 17, 2008
I can keep this review fairly short. Matter is 450-ish pages of very good story telling in Bank's magnificent Culture universe let down by a 50 page rushed, anti climactic and sometimes downright bad conclusion. If you're interested in the Culture books, try one of the earlier ones.

4 out of 5 stars

Solid addition to the Culture canon August 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I've been a Banks fan for a long time and he has certainly produced some disappointing books recently. At his best, he is truly brilliant, but sometimes the books just don't work.
It took me a while to get into this book, because the plot is multi-layered, and the layers are only revealed as the book progresses. As a result, what seems like a relatively simple plot at the beginning becomes much more complex and wide-ranging by the end.
I grew more and more interested and impressed by the book as it went on, and really liked the latter parts. There are many very different and varied characters from the different races and societies, as well as a fascinating and novel physical environment. Lots of imagination, and I always like Banks' writing style.
It's not his best book, but it was very enjoyable, and a worthy addition to the Culture canon. I hesitate between four and five stars - for Banks it's a four-star effort; for anyone else it might have scored five.

1 out of 5 stars

The last Ian M. Banks novel I'll ever read August 6, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful

Another of Bank's "Culture" novels, Matter has finally convinced me I should skip his offering on the bookshelves from now on (and I'd stress I've only bought 2, and borrowed others from a friend). Grand in scope and ideas, Matter rehashes familiar (and now very irritating) plot and stylistic themes in the Culture series.

-For some unexplained reason, there's a load of humans in the Culture universe who are at the technological level of either a rural 16th or 17th Century or living a fascist-type state in the 1940s era, and who are seperate from the Culture themselves. Consequently, everyone (including some aliens) from these places tends to speak as if they're a saucy character from The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy. (The Algebraist takes this to new heights, where even the aliens sound as if they were creations of PG Wodehouse.). This is incredibly predictable and very tiresome in the final analysis.

-As with Excession, the pacing in this novel is utterly dreadful. Literally the first 350 pages are mere scene-setting, while the last 50 pages or so are like a speeded-up film from the 1920s. Ultimately, the characters of Ferbin, Oramen, Holse and Tyl Loesp are all, incredibly, completely throwaway. They have very little impact on the outcome and are simply vehicles to get the plot to a certain point - which ends very very abruptly in a "I couldn't think of anything else" kind of way. I realise that you could say the same for any character in any novel, but it's especially pronounced in Matter. The characters' actions and revelations are all completely moot.

Stay far, far away. Banks' concepts are wasted on his execution here.

1 out of 5 stars

Derivative August 5, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

I have read a lot of SF, and so his Banks. I can tell, because it's all there: from Niven, Heinlein and Varley to The Hitchhiker's Guide and Dr Zoidburger. In fact, the whole thing is the Guide taking itself seriously, filled out with 'hard' sc-fi elements. It's entertaining all right, just not much cop. Oh, and the sex scenes are grating.

3 out of 5 stars

Disappointing and not up to his usual high standards August 2, 2008
I had been eagerly looking forward to losing myself in another Culture novel and have always enjoyed Iain Bank's science fiction work but found 'Matter' to be disappointing. Pace is slow and plot weak. The book would have benefited from being a couple of hundred pages shorter and it is difficult to warm to any of the characters. Narrative as ever is well constructed but that is not enough in itself.

I have no doubt that fans of Banks will read this book despite the increasing number of negative reviews - I did! But by the time I'd finished it I realised how little I had enjoyed it compared with his earlier work.

I am also sure that Iain reads these reviews and hope that he continues to write Culture novels - and not simply to finance his serious work - but that he takes note of the comments and considers what made his early Culture novels so much better for his readership than this effort.