Good book. Great for it's length and scope even.

Some comments:

Did he really have to make the Azadians bug eyed baby eating monsters to show the evils of authoritarianism? Did he really have to go so far? I for one thought that was too much but I suppose some people need it spelled out for them.

I'm a fan of the Culture. I've only read Consider Phlebas before but it's one of my favorite Utopias (somewhat disappointed we don't get to see more of it in this one). It aligns with my Anarchist tendencies. And basing it off the Singularity sells it better than most and I like that. And thus I want them to be the good guys. Now, what Marhwin Skel said to the emperor before the last match, that flew right in the face of good guys stuff.
I know that Banks doesn't really intend to give them the good guy cape out of the box (if ever), considering their treatment in the first book, so I wasn't surprised. But I couldn't stop thinking about what Skel did until it struck me, the whole book's supposed to be an expose, if you will, of Hierarchical Authoritarianism, right? And what's a better admonishment than one man having the power to topple the system just like that? Even if the imperial guard were more loyal to Azad than their Emperor (I.e. if the system worked as intended), the whole thing depended upon a single castle full of people. I suppose it's all stating the obvious but I thought what Banks did was very clever there.

Do any of the Culture books explore the issues within it as opposed to other societies?