Hardcover, 593 pages

English language

Published May 10, 2008 by Orbit.

ISBN:
9780316005364

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (2 reviews)

In a distant-future, highly advanced society of seemingly unlimited technological capability, a crime is committed within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one--maybe two--people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever. Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilizations throughout the greater galaxy. Concealing her new identity--and her particular set of abilities--might be a dangerous strategy. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.--From publisher description.

10 editions

reviewed Matter by Iain M. Banks

Long, hard to get into

2 stars

My failure to connect with this on rereading may be more about changes to me, and perhaps changes to reading itself in the intervening years. It seemed unnecessarily drawn out and kind of… dull? I hasten to reiterate that I think this reflects on on me than the author or the work. I struggle with books that resemble shaggy dog stories or don’t seem to really be about anything other than the plot. That means there are many narrative forms that are artful that I now feel… alienated from perhaps?

If I have a chance to revisit this again in my life I think my view will change.

Subjects

  • Government investigators -- Fiction
  • Brothers and sisters -- Fiction
  • Murder -- Fiction
  • Life on other planets -- Fiction