Category Archives: Currently Reading
Book Review – Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Surface Detail
I recently finished Surface Detail, a Culture novel from Iain M. Banks – entertaining but not up to his usual high standards.
The overall plot concept had great potential, but I think it suffered poor implementation and editing – in particular it has a couple of seemingly important characters who weren’t really explored in any detail and were mostly irrelevant to the story. Banks also did a bit of a Gemmell – wrapping everything up in the last 5 pages. The anti-hero felt bland and a bit stereotypical of the villains in Culture novels (e.g. Matter, The Player of Games).
The positive was (more…)
Charles Stross – Singularity Sky
I just finished Singularity Sky – fantastic, recommended. Smacked strongly of Reynolds and Banks, but that’s good company as far as I’m concerned.
I found out about Stross because he’s a fellow geek and even better, had some of his work available for free download. I first read The Concrete Jungle and then bought paperbacks of The Atrocity Archives, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise (which I haven’t started yet – I’ll save that for holiday reading).
From making his work available as a free download, he’s managed to sell 3 paperbacks in a month, with many more to follow since I generally buy everything published in paperback by authors I like.
I’ve recommended to dad to check this out.
Here’s another review from SFsite.com.