Matter - Iain M. Banks

While his mainstream and standard SF novels have been increasingly disappointing in recent years, the author's marvellous Culture universe has never failed to provide Banks with the ideal material for setting his imagination loose, and it has always resulted in the creation of the writer's best work. Matter is no exception.

Disconcertingly however, Fantasy elements are to the fore at the start of this new Culture novel. Set on the Eighth level of the Shellworld of Sursamen, the story is initially based around the court intrigues following the death of King Hausk of the Sarl warrior race during a battle with the Dedalyn of the Ninth level. The King's murder, by his best friend, is witnessed by Prince Ferbin, who flees for his life, while his brother Oramen is prepared for the throne. 

His search for justice takes Ferbin outside of Sursamen in a quest for his sister Djan Seriy Anaplian, who is now a member of the Culture, working in Special Circumstances, an agency that monitors and secretly intervenes in more primitive civilisations in the galaxy. It soon becomes clear to Anaplian that there is more going on around Sursamen than a localised power struggle on her primitive home world - there are worrying signs of activity that suggest that there are higher forces interested in the events playing out on the Shellworld.

With its basic quest outline and explorations of ancient cultures and mysterious planets that hold ancient secrets, Matter often feels like Banks's last SF novel The Algebraist rewritten as a Culture novel. Although it still leans largely towards fantasy, the balance however is much better here, with the several plot threads all working towards a common purpose, and Banks working as well on the small scale characterisation of the personalities on the Eighth level of Sursamen, as he does in extending it outward into the wider scope of the Culture universe.  

As ever, Banks continues to expand on the almost limitless possibilities of this vast universe in his depiction of the other Optimae races - the Morthanveld, the Nariscene and the Oct - and in his marvellous creation of the fascinating and mysterious multi-level Shellworlds. The small details accumulate and Matter all builds up marvellously into an appropriately epic scale with a suitably explosive grand finale. If only all Iain Banks books were as good as the Culture novels...

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