|
Matter | 
| Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
Buy New: $13.53
You Save: $12.46 (48%)
New (30) Used (11) Collectible (1) from $13.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 3103
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 608
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.9
ISBN: 0316005363
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780316005364
ASIN: 0316005363
Publication Date: February 27, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: H20080409011608T
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
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.
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.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Does it Matter? May 1, 2008
It's dangerous to make suppositions about the motives of a writer, but this book gives me the impression that Banks didn't really want to write another Culture novel, until he noticed that his bank account was getting a mite low. What's bad about Matter isn't that it's a bad book--it's just not a very good one, and it certainly doesn't measure up to this writer's potential.
In fact, with the help of a really capable (read "with the temperament of a junkyard dog") editor and couple of rewrites, this could have been a fine novel. It just needs a lot of work that it never got. As others have remarked, this tome seems far too long. (Though I've read books with more pages that seemed far too short.) For example, when a writer tells of a pompous politician delivering a long-winded, insincere eulogy, he could elect to handle this by giving the opening sentences, and saying, "...and the pompous windbag went on in this vein for what seemed an eternity". Instead, Banks actually reproduces the speech in its entirety. Unforgivable.
I did almost hurl the book after about 60 pages, but then the discovery of the stow-away drone by the female culture agent gave me a chuckle. The chuckle gave birth to hope...which eventually faded back into near-boredom. And yes, the plot skids to a dead stop at the end.
Buy the paperback.
 Another Great Culture Novel April 26, 2008
The pacing was a little inconsistent, but it's hard to complain when the book you're reading is an Iain M. Banks Culture novel. This is some of the very best science fiction being written today. Read it!
 Fascinatingly Boring April 13, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This story, set in Banks' Culture universe, follows three siblings from a world where firearms is a recent invention. The brothers are princes of a people on this world, and for a long time, the story mostly follows their adventures on the world itself.
The princess is now a Culture citizen, and we follow her adventures as well.
Obviously, the three interchanging stories are related to a central plot, but my main problem with the book is that although the Culture chapters are fascinating in general, the other story archs could just as well have appeared in a fantasy or historical novel. They just don't feel like science fiction and leaves me lacking a sense of wonder and awe.
Add to this that the plot isn't that original and chugs along at a slow pace, and you've got a book that's vaguely fascinating in places, but mostly just boring.
The book is almost 600 pages long, but could have easily been trimmed down to 200-300 pages without losing much of the overall plot.
Although I must admit that I find it refreshing to read far-future SF where mankind, for once, is at the top of the galactic food chain, it's also the Culture universe's biggest narrative problem, because Banks has to seek conflict and intrigue in other places, but as a reader, you fail to become engaged.
Given that the book does contain some good SF ideas and concepts, it's intriguing that the result is so dull as is the case.
middle of the pack for Mr. Banks April 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As usual when checking out what other people have to say, I am rather astonished to see the glowing 5 star reviews of a book like this. Especially given its place in a series of works set in the Culture universe, it makes this book have an easy basis for comparison with the author's other novels.
This book is rather pedestrian as Iain Banks goes... for instance, at one point a character voyages on a series of Culture ships, and the reader is treated to a list of ship names, and the character's reaction to them as being silly. No attempt is made to characterize them, and the net effect is one of the author mailing it in and taking the easy road. Inventing some names, throwing them at the reader, and proceeding. No attempts are made to flesh out our loved machine entities. It strikes me as lazy.
The first half of the book... almost nothing happens. We are left following three major characters each of whom is demonstrably incompetent: one of whom is adept at running away, one of whom is oblivious, and one of whom is very good at naval gazing and taking rides on space ships. None of them is intriguing or sympathetic. I found myself cheering for the major human villain, who starts out showing some dimensionality but ends up cartoony and moustache-twirling. "Take no prisoners!" the bad guy states. After indicating how the enemy soldiers should be put to death, Banks should have put in a "Muhahahahahahahaha!" to complete the image.
Where did the nuance go?
Overall it leaves me thinking... where is the story? Why do I care about these people? I really do not. After encountering this author, I immediately purchased every one of his existing books, and ever since I have bought his next book without checking a review or reading anything that would spoil the experience for me.
No more.
This book is in no way as bad as Gabardale but the author has broken the faith. The genius that is behind the Wasp Factory is just writing like one fat and content.
Banks has made the cardinal sin with this book: it's boring. Banks is my favorite author and 200 pages in I found myself putting the book down to read some Neil Asher. I should be flogged for this, but, sorry 5* reviewers this is a snoozefest. And that brings up the wonder of what a truly great novel can be rated when people give lethargy inducing work like this with 5*... maybe I am getting jaded, but this author has some truly fantastic work and I fail to see how anyone familiar with his repertoire can put this snoozer on the top of the list.
Buy the book and read it for completeness. But if you were a fan of the old Iain Banks who seems to have lost his way around Gabardale, he is still somewhere out to lunch and mailing it in.
Right up there with his best April 9, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Several years ago I was browsing through a used book store and saw a book with a strange title, and this really neat looking ringworld on the cover. I had never heard of Banks, and certainly never heard of the Culture or Consider Phlebas. But I grabbed it. And I was completely blown away.
I've been a Culture devotee ever since. And this time I got even more than I was looking for.
A lot of Banks' novels just use the Culture universe as a vehicle for the larger story Banks is trying to tell. Whether or not the reader likes it, its what makes the Culture universe so impregnably great. Sure, he could water it down, give everyone what they're clamoring for, and cash in - but I think Banks saves his favorite plot threads for use in Culture novels, or ones that he can fit to it anyway. I found Matter highly satisfying. It is so much larger than just another Culture novel. Banks has a tendency to go off into the thicket from time to time, but in Matter I felt the story had a coherent, consistent pace. The plot does speed up in the end but so does the excitement! Part of what makes Bank's writing so exciting is how he leaves just enough up to the imagination to take your thoughts to that next level - moments when you get to climb up there with him and his lofty creativity.
In the end, Matter wraps up not the backing Sci-Fi plot intricacies we're drooling to know more about, but the theme, and very well.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
