Banks seems to have very quickly begun struggling with the limitless potential of the universe he created. It only took two books for him to return to the identical premise of his first book, that of a deliberately anachronistic, contrarian, but morally-driven professional warrior used by but not part of the Culture, and haunted by a long bloody past. On the whole, it was better the first time and did not need to be repeated. I was also deeply unimpressed by the "reveal" at book's end. This rut of Banks' is all the more frustrating for the occasional glimpses he gives of a vast universe where not everyone curses and drinks like a 20th century American, and indeed may not even be humanoid, carbon-based, or involved in military conflicts. Surely he could devote more than a chapter to those stories.