Great story | Matter | Iain M. Banks

A few responses to particularly dumb criticisms of Matter | Matter | Iain M. Banks

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	• Matter Iain M. Banks Orbit, 2008 - 608 pages average customer review:based on 50 reviews view larger image
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Not quite up to the standard of his other books

For whatever reason, I just couldn't get into this novel like I could the other Culture novels. Banks's sentence structures seemed winding and vague, so at first I thought this was the problem. I went back and checked against an older novel (Player of Games), and found that the grammar in that was very similar, though. Lots of semi-colons, em-dashes, and asides.

So why was this one so much harder to get into? I think the problem is that while Banks's writing style works okay for Sci-Fi, it doesn't work so great for the more "fantasy"-esque sections of this story which focus on the royal family of The Eighth level of Surmasen. Those were the parts that I consistently had a hard time getting into.

That said, I did eventually get into the swing of things around page 100 or so, and am currently enjoying it. This one just took a while to pick up, unlike other Culture novels, where I've been hooked from the get-go.

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Great story

The scope of this story is huge but very finely crafted. The details are very carefully created to add texture to the larger overarching plot. A great addition to the Culture series of books but also a good standalone story.

A few responses to particularly dumb criticisms of Matter

Critic: Its a long book. Isn't that a bad thing.

Me: Boring is bad. Long is not. This isn't boring.

Critic: It doesn't push the boundaries of sci-fi, therefore its lame.

Me: Its interesting, creative, and intelligent. Thus by definition its pushing the boundaries of sci-fi.

Critic: But its meadering. It doesn't stay locked on the central plotline like a pitbull on bologna.

Me: Again, boring is bad, meandering isn't.

Critic: But...but...the ending! It doesn't end the way 95% of the books I've read end! That's bad!

Me: Did you take your medication this morning?

Critic: But, hold on there mister, I just didn't think it was the best book by Banks that I've ever read, therefore I was "disappointed".

Me: Are you high?

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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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