Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Having recently read The Hydrogen Sonata (the latest Iain M. Banks Culture novel), I was pleasantly surprised to discover another Culture novel I had missed. Surface Detail is further proof that Banks is back in top form after the mediocre offerings of The Algebraist and Matter. While not as powerful and emotionally intense as his top works The Player of Games and particularly Use of Weapons, this Culture novel is up there with exciting, mind-bending Excession.
A war fought in VR, deciding the continued existence of actual Hells; a woman brutally murdered, now out for revenge on the richest and most powerful man in the Galaxy; self-replicating machines as a universe-threatening infection; and, of course, dozens of Culture Ships and ship Minds trying to bend the Galaxy to their own moral standards.
The characters may be a bit two-dimensional, and the wrap-up all too neat, but for excitement, wild and wonderful ideas, and especially for a plot only Banks can weave, this book is top of the line.
Oh, and after reading the last word of Surface Detail I have to read Use of Weapons again…
