Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #203 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-31
• Binding: Hardcover
• 544 pages

Synopsis
In a world renowned 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, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever. Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has 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. 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.

Customer Reviews

Zzzzzzzzzzz
I had to force myself to read this - I would usually fly through a new IMB book in hours, but this has taken me over a month to plod through. The plot doesn't get interesting until page 358.
I've read much worse, but there is real a sense of disappointment when you have looked forward to a book being released and it turns out to be a grind to read.

flawed but classic Uncle Banksie
It could be that Uncle Banksie has taken a slight stumble with this one - especially the machina ex deus (yes, that's intentional) ending. I can understand all the gripes I'm reading in these reviews. However, certain set pieces are classic Banks, his imagination has in no way pooped out yet, and the writing is, as always, stellar. While I preferred Look to Windward (loved it, in fact) and the Algebraist, I'd say if you're a big fan of Banks' SF, go for it, you won't be disappointed.

more like 2.5 stars, but (heh) no matter
Banks's first 3.5 Culture novels (Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, Use of Weapons and State of the Art) established The Culture as one of the great SF settings. However, the nearly 20 years since then have seen it has become a victim of its own success: subsequent Culture novels were variations on a theme: take a quirky, unique setting, present some vague threat or mystery to drive the plot along, add in the typical Culture combination of liberal angst plus hypertechnological might, and - boom - the Culture always wins, even though the individuals protagonists themselves are left either world-weary or dead.

Despite its reliance on these stock elements and considerable length (over 500 pages), Matter builds its tension well, intercutting between the Culture and the Feersum-Enjinn-like setting of the Shellworld. Its main problem is that, as the speed increases and events reach their climax in the last 50 or so pages, all the carefully built themes, mystery and characterisation goes out the window, and the action (and most of the characters) come to an abrupt end.

Matter, then, is for most of its length an entertaining read but ultimately a disappointing one. Banks's skill as a writer and his undeniable imagination are enough to keep the pages turning, but by the end, his limitations are even more starkly underlined. There's sadly nothing new here &, while he may write more Culture novels in the future, unless he is able to say something new or do something different, it'll be increasingly hard to look forward to them.