Inversions

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if somebody lost a bet, or is trying to win a bet. I ges this is one or the other.
This way or that, Banks here clearly went and used purple prose turned up to 11:
»I have been afforded tantalising half-glimpses of her — after one of her many baths — in a thin shift with the light behind her, stepping in a coil of powdered, scented air from one room to another, her arms raised to secure a towel about her long, damp red hair, and I have watched her during grand court occasions when she has worn a formal gown and danced as lightly and delicately — and with as demure an expression — as any expensively tutored season-maiden, and I freely confess that I have found myself drawn to her in a physical sense just as any man (youthful or not) might be to a woman of such healthy and generous good looks.«
Or maybe it was just some complaint, that there were hardly any descriptions how people looked in the other books. So he went and showed us that there can be too much description.

Oh, and this is not really a Culture novel. I mean, sure, in the two stories we hav one Culture citizen each. But otherwise it is a renaissance tipe setting where the ruler has an adviser with modern/Culture/anarcist views trying to get as much of that implemented as possible. That’s it. That’s the whole book.

This still gets ★★★☆☆ because it is – the purple prose aside – well written and not boring. I got an audiobook version, and i never could get the names of the two rulers straight. With the second tier nobles i didn’t even think it would be worth it to try.

Come to think of it, i like the Culture, the fictional society, but the Culture novels: not so much, actually.