To sum up, before I dive in to the review: I thought the book was slow, but interesting, for about 2/3 of its length; then, in the last 1/3 of the book, it become some of the best sci-fi that I have ever read.

When I began the book, I thought that it would be talking about the game of Damage, which was so briefly and enticingly portrayed in Banks's previous book, Consider Phlebas. Unfortunately, this book did not even mention Damage. It chose instead to portray another fascinating game: Azad.

The book starts off with a great deal of introductory material. As opposed to the previous book, Banks spends much more time building up his vision of the Culture, a non-hierarchical, technologically advanced utopia. Some of Banks's descriptions are quite amusing: at one point Yay, a minor character, casually discusses building an Orbital platform composed entirely of islands floating above the clouds; her complaint with Gurgeh's own platform is that it looks too much like an ordinary world! In addition, Banks carefully begins setting the foundations of Gurgeh's own character. In the beginning, Gurgeh is somewhat of a gray character, meaning that he has no particular qualities that distinguish him except for his obsession with games. Unfortunately, Gurgeh is also a bored character--a master of almost every game, he wins with disdainful ease--and a bored character with no special qualities makes for boring exposition.

One good piece of exposition, however, was the way Banks described the characters of all the robots in his story. Each robot (or drone) has a distinct personality--Chamlis is an old, wise friend, while Mawhrin-Skel is an impetuous youngster--but Banks never lets us forget that they are all ultimately machines. This means that the drones are always fully aware of their own abilities: one of the drones from Contact casually explores a nearby gas giant while Gurgeh is trying to decide whether or not to visit Azad.

Although the first part of the book can be slow, in hindsight all of this exposition is necessary for the major shift that occurs about two-thirds of the way through the narrative, when Gurgeh, accompanied by his drone, visits an inner city in the kingdom of Azad. Gradually Gurgeh's character becomes more and more defined as his mind fixates on the game of Azad and, by extension, the people and worlds of Azad. It is also at this point that the book becomes an intense psychological narrative rather than the more freewheeling, action-packed space opera of Consider Phlebas. I finished reading the last third of the book in one sitting, way, way past my bed-time. The finale (on a fascinating fire planet) was absolutely breathtaking: Banks merges Gurgeh's mental disarray with some whiz-bang action to great effect.

The epilogue of the book is beautiful, but morally ambiguous. I did not know what to think of the kingdom of Azad, or of Gurgeh's actions, or even of the Culture's decisions, after the story was over. A thought-provoking finish to a thoughtful book.

If I could find any fault in this book, it would be in its somewhat juvenile framing device, which is not needed at all. I suppose that the framing device answers some questions that are otherwise left untouched, but using it to reveal a "surprise" at the ending didn't add anything to the story. In fact, I thought it detracted from the subtle melancholy that I felt at the end of the narrative proper.

But that's a small criticism for a long book. Ultimately, this is one of the finest pieces of science-fiction I have read, and I highly recommend it.

Note: although knowledge of Consider Phlebas is not strictly necessary to understand this book, it does help the reader understand some points about the universe that Banks occasionally just glosses over.

Copyright © 2001 Steven Wu