Like Matter and like The Algebraist before it, it’s a textual behemoth of a book (it weighs in at over 600 pages) and like both those books and Transition, Banks’ 2009 even-though-it’s-supposed-to-be-mainstream,-this-still-seems-like-SF-to-me release, his latest book takes as its priority the introduction of a diverse net of characters, the connections between which may not become apparent for several hundred pages. But if it’s a faster-than-light white-knuckle roller-coaster ride you’re after, Surface Detail might not be entirely to your speed. Banks’ novels certainly meet those criteria, and they do so very stylishly. Space opera, as a style, is typified by a sense of sweeping scale, by high-end galactic adventure, by larger-than-life characterisation and by a representation of society in which the human (or human-analogue) inhabitants are at constant risk of becoming overshadowed by their technology. Even if, this time around, we’ve only been asked to wait approximately one-third of the time interval that ensued before the release of the previous Culture novel (nod of thanks to IMB on that score LMB, please take note). Banks’ Culture series) has got to seem somewhat propitious. (Review first appeared in ASIM 49, December 2010)Īny season that sees the release of new works in what have been, for the past couple of decades or so, the two most iconic ongoing series in the Space Opera subgenre (to whit, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga, and Iain M.

Surface detail banks