This book had plenty of interesting and original ideas and even some of the most interesting cultures I’ve ever seen in science fiction.

You have The Culture, which we can imagine as the ultimate end of a very liberal culture where people are free to do almost anything they please, where people pursue every pleasure imaginable and freedom reigns. Supposedly a paradise until you look at the seedy underbelly; a glorious iteration on Huxley’s “Brave New World” types of culture.

Then you have the Idirans: three-legged predators in keratinous armor, large and imposing, savage and religious, and surprisingly wise in certain respects. The backdrop of the book is the ongoing war between the Idirans and the Culture, in which our protagonist Horza plays a critical role.

The plot mostly takes place on a planet that would have been a backwater of no note, except for that one of the Culture’s great “Minds” (an enormous AI of epic proportions and capabilities) crashes and hides there. Immediately a race is on for the Idirans to try and get access to this proprietary and technology that could change the tide of the war. So that’s the premise of the plot.

Along the way, there are epic space battles and huge cities and space ships and epic happenings in space and on strange planets and islands. There’s a cult and there’s some really grotesque things that happen; be warned. This is a book where you kind of hang onto the edge of your seat at certain points, so I won’t give away any major plot points except to say: this isn’t your fairy tale type of ending.

In fact, at the end of it, I was left wondering: what was the point of any of that? There isn’t a clear side to root for, and none of the protagonists are traditional heroes.

I had a hard time caring too much about the main character. The changer species is interesting, but Horza just seems…there’s nothing about him that drew me to him. He seemed mostly self-interested and logical. I didn’t get a sense of much heart or many endearing qualities or seeing much of his humanity. And at the end, he dies, so…it makes me wonder what was the whole point of his story at all?

It certainly doesn’t seem a happy ending for him. On the other hand, I can’t really label this a “tragedy” story; it just doesn’t have the tragedic arc. It seems there is no clear story arc for the story as a whole, because the same “meh” feeling is there for the other character arcs as well.

I found myself mostly rooting for Yelsin and Balvada (sp?). Yelsin dies in the end and Balvada goes into hibernation for hundreds of years, just to wake up and kill herself. Ok. Again, what’s the point?

Reading the book description again, I think the author’s point was probably an underlying nihilistic philosophy. Nothing matters, there is no meaning in life, and he wanted to write a story to reflect that. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make for good story-telling. I have read books that had a nihilistic theme to it but were still more satisfying to read.

Maybe the point was more the “war is hell” theme. With those books I’m usually looking for a survival story, where I’m rooting for the heroes to survive. This starts to feel like that, but, again, in the end everyone dies, so still—not very satisfying as a war story.

The worldbuilding was very interesting, plot points pretty original or at least nuanced, pace was fast enough for me. So this deserves a few stars for those things alone. I did finish it. I just…yeah. Not only am I unsure what the point of the story was, I’m unsure even what themes he was trying to get across. It seems muddled.

It reads almost like a history in some ways, like he’s trying to show all the complexities of a “real” historical account. I think he was going for a sense of realism (albeit while being science fiction set hundreds or thousands of years in the future). He succeeded at that.

But, while there were many of the technical requirements of a space opera (space battles, big space ships, huge planet-changing things happening, a motley crew…), it didn’t have any of the feeling of romanticism and magic that a space opera should have in my mind.

In summary, I would say it’s at least an interesting read if for the reason that it’s original if nothing else. Glad I read it once; probably won’t read it again. But since this is only the first published work of Iain Banks and the cultures are intriguing, I will probably continue at some point.