After reading a couple of Iain M. Banks' books, I'm starting to see the pattern:
Protagonists dwarfed by the scale of their environments, several seemingly-unrelated narrators whose stories are drawn and woven together to produce the finale and technology either vanishing, or beyond the control or comprehension of those whom it serves...
The odd thing, perhaps, is that they're not particularly pessimistic visions. Machines continue far beyond their anticipated lifespans, hidden 'dictators' are usually benevolent or are only vaguely interested in what they might control; generally speaking, central characters are well looked-after.

The books are also location-description heavy, which is normally a real turn-off for me. I'm still not sure why, but I persevere with the early stages, try to build an imnage of the world being described and end up being gripped by the unstoppable progress of events towards their conclusions.

This book also sees the return of an 'illiterate narrator', something he used (as Iain Banks) in "The Bridge" to great effect. I suspect it won't be long (if it hasn't happened already) before he tries the more extreme version, where words can be scrambled as long as the first and last letters (and presumably the sentence structure) are correct. If anyone can pull it off...

So, be warned; you'll have to persevere to get the most out of this book, but it's not too bad for all that. I'd be inclined to go for "The Wasp Factory" or "The Bridge" as follow-ups; not science fiction, but unless my memory's playing tricks on me, much easier to read!

Picked up at the Herts Bookcrossing meet 28/9. I've read Iain Banks without the M, ie the non-sci fi stuff so interested to try some of this. As I've already read The Wasp Factory and The Bridge as recommended by Kenza78 so I may be on the right road to understanding (some, at least) of this.


Update as forgot to journal before passing this on:
I struggled with this initially as much was phonetically spelt, as the title suggests. However, as Kenza says, with perseverance you get into the story and I found it imaginative and enjoyable. Iain 'M' is even more hardwork to read than Iain (non-sci fi) but worth it.

passed on to me by C-I-D, it was a bookswap book.
thanks

this one didn't work for me, so putting it on my partner's TBR

he decided not to

Picked up at Suedo's house to go to Oxford Convention in April.

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Congratulations on finding a Bookcrossing book and Happy Reading!!!

MY brother is always looking for sci-fi books. I'll give this first to him.
Thank you for the book, kind Bookcrossers!

I gave the book to my brother.
Happy reading!

The book will go to the meet-up in Helsinki with me.
Happy reading!

Thank you for the book. Have to look more careful about it - if it's my cup of tea or not :)

I don't know if I read this any time soon, so I release this to find other readers.