Surface Detail, Iain M Banks

I have to admit that I rather bounced off Matter so I started Surface Detail with a mild concern that I might somehow have gone off Iain M Banks' Culture novels. It turns out I had nothing to fear; it's a very engaging and readable book, although I agree that the second half somehow doesn't quite pay off everything set up in the first.

But yes, as other reviewers have noted, the last sentence really does rather put the rest of the book into a new light, so if you're one of those readers who is sometimes tempted to look ahead to the end, this is one book where it's worth trying not to.