A Song of Stone - Iain Banks

Gods' Game (Matter - Iain M. Banks)

Advantages: vintage M. Banks
Disadvantages: none really

the face of yearning, longing and loss. Despite the demise of a significant proportion of the major characters, it's entirely satisfactory and not particularly depressing. The spectacular imagination doesn't fail the author, and there is enough material in the Sursamen alone, never mind the whole concept of the Shellworlds, for 5 novels by lesser writers. Less usually, there is quite a lot of explaining in "Matter" - more than I have seen before in Iain M. Banks's novels, and although the tale becomes easier to understand thanks to those little lectures at the beginning, it also loses the suspense of uncertainty, so characteristic of the best Banksian space operas (and mainstream novels too). There are, also, occasionally, a few at least rather wordy paragraphs which could have been safely excised. Still, a pretty riveting read ...

magdadh 10.05.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Matter - Iain M. Banks

Songs of love and war

Advantages: Well written and very readable
Disadvantages: Almost too readable

While i like Iain Banks's sci-fi stuff, i've never been over enamoured with the rest of his work. The exception has always the been the Wasp Factory, which I really enjoyed. However on reading Song of Stone, i think i might be begining to see whats good about Banks. A Song of Stone starts with a line of refugees fleeing a war. The narrator is the owner of a Castle and him and his partner, Morgan, are taken by a gang of outlaws back to the Castle to act as guides and servants. The interaction between our unamed narrator and the Lieutenant, leader of the gang, is part of what makes the book readable. Once the Castle is occupied the plot revolves around the raids made by the Lieutenant and her treatment of the narrator and his partner. The ending is the predictable one of death for the narrator, Morgan, and the lieutenant. However ...

Telute 26.03.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Song of Stone - Iain Banks

?Complicity? by Iain Banks

Advantages: exciting novel
Disadvantages: a lots of graphic sex and violence

Surprise surprise! This is what I get, among the rest, to translate by my publisher. "Complicity" by Iain Banks, you can imagine my surprise... Iain Banks has a cult status in UK, and his fan club is having fanatic proportions. Bank?s writing career has been both popular and experimental. Cleverly inventive mega-selling Scotsman never suffered for his art. His latest work is slightly less staggering, considered its SF context - since his first, million-selling novel ?The Wasp Factory? in 1984. Now he has settled into a routine of a three months writing per year and taking the rest of the year for his interests in fast cars and fancy technology. Indeed, Bank?s book ?Complicity? is currently being made into a film starring Trainspotting's Sick Boy, Jonny Lee Miller. Banks? only art form is literature. But, as someone who deeply ...

barefoot777 30.01.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Complicity - Iain Banks