Lolita

Written by Vladimir Nabokov

Narrated by Jeremy Irons

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.'

LOLITA is the story of Humbert Humbert, poet and pervert, and his obsession with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze. Determined to possess his 'Lolita' both carnally and artistically, Humbert embarks on a disastrous courtship that can only end in tragedy.

Initially, Nabokov was unable to find an American publisher willing to take the book on. It was finally published in Paris in 1954 but its notoriety spread quickly. Graham Green, in an interview in THE TIMES later that year, called it 'one of the best books of 1954'. When G.P. Putnam's Sons published in the US in 1958, it was a bestseller; the first book since Gone with the Wind to sell 100,000 copies in the first three weeks of publication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Little, Brown (Hachette UK) Audio
• Release date: Mar 6, 2008
• ISBN: 9781405503891

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov (San Petersburgo, 1899-Montreux, 1977), uno de los más extraordinarios escritores del siglo XX, nació en el seno de una acomodada familia aristocrática. En 1919, a consecuencia de la Revolución Rusa, abandonó su país para siempre. Tras estudiar en Cambridge, se instaló en Berlín, donde empezó a publicar sus novelas en ruso con el seudónimo de V. Sirin. En 1937 se trasladó a París, y en 1940 a los Estados Unidos, donde fue profesor de literatura en varias universidades. En 1960, gracias al gran éxito comercial de Lolita, pudo abandonar la docencia, y poco después se trasladó a Montreux, donde residió, junto con su esposa Véra, hasta su muerte. En Anagrama se le ha dedicado una «Biblioteca Nabokov» que recoge una amplísima muestra de su talento narrativo. En «Compactos» se han publicado los siguientes títulos: Mashenka, Rey, Dama, Valet, La defensa, El ojo, Risa en la oscuridad, Desesperación, El hechicero, La verdadera vida de Sebastian Knight, Lolita, Pnin, Pálido fuego, Habla, memoria, Ada o el ardor, Invitado a una decapitación y Barra siniestra; La dádiva, Cosas transparentes, Una belleza rusa, El original de Laura y Gloria pueden encontrarse en «Panorama de narrativas», mientras que sus Cuentos completos están incluidos en la colección «Compendium». Opiniones contundentes, por su parte, ha aparecido en «Argumentos».

Reviews for Lolita

[kavinay-677830 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Banks' specialities: it gets weird, you can't predict the end and yet it all makes sense eventually.

[adzebill · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good solid space opera which starts slow and finishes with a rip-roaring battle. I hadn't read a Culture novel for a while, and it took a bit of concentration through 500 pages until I discovered there was a glossary of all the characters, species, ships etc at the end. Sigh.

[santhony_35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my sixth Culture novel, and I have definitely had mixed reviews for the first five I read. Upon the advice of many, I skipped Consider Phlebas and was very impressed with A Player of Games. I found the next two titles, Use of Weapons and Excession to be overly complex and difficult to follow, given my reading pattern of 20-30 pages/night. The next book in the series, Inversions, was not even science fiction, and only extremely tangentially Culture. Thankfully, Look to Windward was excellent and spurred me to continue with the next book in the series, Matter.Now, it should be noted that each book in the Culture series stands on its own. There are no common characters are set of events, beyond the setting in the Culture universe. In my opinion, A Player of Games gives the best overview of Culture and is a good starting point. While I found A Player of Games and Look to Windward to be both outstanding, Use of Weapons, Excession and Inversions could be skipped, with no loss of continuity.I have a major issue with this book, and it is largely the same one that I had with Inversions, though on a lesser scale; much of it is not science fiction. In effect, much of the book takes place on a planet featuring a human civilization in a roughly late 19th century technological state, with elements of fantasy inserted.We are thousands of years in the future. The human race has colonized the stars and contacted a number of alien species. Any humans found throughout the galaxy were necessarily transported there by starship, with access to all the technology found within Culture. How is it that they have reverted to levels of technology thousands of years in the past? In Excession, the entire book centers on kingdoms with medieval technology. Much of Matter occurs on (actually in) a planet with a human civilization of pre-20th century technology.In both cases, the Special Circumstances department of Culture monitors these civilizations and intervenes when and in what manner it deems appropriate. The question remains, however, that if they are human (and every indication is that they are) how did they so drastically devolve and why would Culture sit back and allow such devolution when they are not shy about intervening in other cases.It is possible that in the Culture universe, humans did not originate on Earth, but the thought that multiple human civilizations would develop on widely separated planets throughout the galaxy along the same technological path is virtually impossible, and in any event, humans originated somewhere, and if they are to be found on different planets, they had to get there somehow, which again raises the question of how a star traveling species reverts to medieval existence.Of course, if they are NOT human, the thought that an alien civilization would evolve in exactly the same manner as Earth civilization is too absurd to even consider.As I said, this is the second instance that the author has used the same nonsensical basis for his book. Both suffer as a result. It is no coincidence that so far, the best two novels in the Culture series are purely science fiction, without these elements of fantasy and devolution. And I will say, the balance of the book, dealing with the Special Circumstances unit of Culture is very good. Fortunately, this aspect of the book predominates in the last half.

[baswood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Iain M Banks - MatterMatter is the eighth book in Iain Banks science Fiction Culture series and this is the fifth book I have read in the series. There are no more on my book shelves and so this will probably be the last one I read. The formula is similar to the other books in the series. The advanced utopian machine based Culture have become guardians of the universe. Robotics has become so advanced that machines build themselves creating their own minds. Humanoids and other alien races who choose to live in the society created by the Culture have enhanced life styles and immortality, but occasionally there are challenges to the system and when these occur human agents are employed by the Culture to deal with the problem. Each of the novels are therefore a story within the Culture series featuring a human agent sent on a mission and as such are stand alone books.Iain M Banks who also wrote mainstream fiction as Iain Banks said in an interview he preferred writing science fiction, because the novel depended on the strength of the ideas by this he meant original story lines. He said:"You can write a perfectly good mainstream novel with no original ideas at all, you just have to tell an interesting story with interesting characters who have something to say" he also said that "you get fewer ideas as you get older, but you do get better at developing them"..........He is as good as his word because each of his culture novels is centred on an original storyline and in Matter this is as good as others I have read in the series. The human agent this time is Djan Seriy Anaplian female and sister to Ferbin Hausk who is a humanoid of the Sarl race. He lives on a Shellworld which is an engineered planet containing a number of levels stacked on top of each other in which various animal life forms live, although some levels are complete vacuums. The Sarls live on the seventh level and they are at war with the Deldeyns who live on the level below. A lift system which controls the movement between levels is controlled by another race who have an uneasy truce with a race of parasites. Ferbin is next in line to his father who rules the Sarls, but in the fighting with the Deldeyns his father is murdered by the general of his army. Ferbin flees and seeks out his sister who he knows to be an agent of the Culture. Meanwhile the Sarls have defeated the Deldeyns and have discovered an ancient city which is being gradually exposed by a huge waterfall tearing away the land mass. The big idea here is the Shellworld itself as there are many similar worlds in the galaxy, but they are under threat from another alien species.If all this sounds confusing it really isn't because Banks is a good enough writer to juggle several plot lines at once and keep the reader on board while holding back some information that will create suspense in the unfolding of the story. I have been fascinated with the idea of the Utopian Culture in previous books, but in this novel Banks chooses not to develop this idea concentrating instead on his story, which builds to a climax with Djan Seriy Anaplian and her brother battling for their lives in the depths of the shellworld. Banks science fiction is not held down by hard science, he lets his imagination run free, but creates enough background (world building) to convince his readers that the scenarios are possible. He is a bit like a modern day Edgar Rice Burroughs in this respect without the overt racism and sexism. Banks has called this novel Matter which is of course a play on the phrase Mind over Matter - the minds of the Culture versus the Matter of the Universe I suppose. Anyway this is a good example of Bank's science fiction work and so 3.5 stars.

[tchelyzt-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read somewhere recently that Iain had to drag himself away from computer games to work on his books. I’m sad to say, it looks like he’s losing the battle. Following on his The Steep Approach to Garbadale, this is the second effort in a row that just wasn’t worth the trouble. For many years I considered him the very best science fiction writer on the planet and his recent The Algebraist was as good as they come.Although packed with his signature inventiveness, this book fails utterly to deliver on plot which boils down to: wicked aide kills king, prince flees to seek his (Culture trained) sister and wanders the universe to find her, meets several of Bank’s fantastic (but mainly irrelevant) civilisations on his journey and returns to claim his inheritance after battling the ‘dragon’ who avenged him.If you haven’t read Banks, don’t despair, there’s a treasure trove of his work available. Avoid this one – it is the worst!

[dantarlin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As I work my way through the Culture series, I am started to get frustrated by some of Banks' writing. This book was great in the areas in which the rest of the series is great- good adventure plot, cool futuristic ideas, some interesting characters. But it is so loaded with stuff that it gets bogged down. For example:-Why write a chapter in the middle of the book introducing a character at some length, only to kill him and his ship off at the end of the chapter to set up a plot advancement? Could have been done much shorter.-Why the lengthy detours to tell us all about an alien space station that the travelers are just passing through anyway?-Why a long discussion of a journey through the world that seems more devoted to telling us about an imaginative form of life, when it doesn't really tell us anything related to the plot?-Why do all the character names have to be so unpronounceable and long?Banks' imagination was breathtaking, but he would have been better served to keep the newness to a lower level in each book; this one drags for 600 pages.The story is of a kingdom on a ShellWorld, a multi-level artificial living surface built millions of years ago by a mysterious and now-extinct race. Yet another mysterious and now-extinct race functioned mainly to destroy these ShellWorlds. Anyway, on Level 8 in this world a nation-building king in a humanoid society with technology approximating the 1800s is completing his wars of conquest to unite the level, when he is murdered by his trusted aid Tyl Loesp, all secretly witnessed by his ne'er do well son Ferbin, who then goes on the run. He is searching for his sister Anaplian, who has gone off-world and joined the Culture as a Special Circumstances agent. The story bounces between the prince, his younger brother Oramen who is back at court and in danger from the traitor and now regent, their sister the Culture agent, and Tyl Loesp. Mixed up in all this there is a complicated political situation among the technologically advanced peoples who oversee the ShellWorld, in which two lesser civilizations split control of the ShellWorld and are in some conflict, while they in turn are overseen by a more advanced culture that is supposed to make sure they're all playing fair and not interfering too much in the primitive groups doing battle within the world.Anyway, Banks seems to like imagining a primitive culture and how it might respond to the technology of the Culture. I'm fine with this, but I want the stories to move faster. Earlier in the series, Player of Games (the best of his books by far) felt much more focused and compact.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book.Ferbin was the King's 2nd son. He was unprepared to be in the war. When the man beside him is killed he runs. While he is hidden he falls asleep. Ferbin awakes as his father is brought in down below. He hears them talk about how he is believed to be dead. Ferbin is trying to decide if he should come out, but some instinct makes him stay hidden. He sees the man he and his father completely trust kill his father. As he listen he hears how the adviser, Loesp plans to act as regent for the youngest son. Loesp plans to arrange for an "accident" to make sure the youngest doesn't live long enough to take the throne. Ferbin flees unsure who he can trust. With his servant he goes in search of his sister how is now with the Culture's Special Circumstances. Ferbin grows up on the way and his servant becomes more than he had been before.Oramen was the youngest son. When he goes from no expectations to King to be he shows him self to have the making of a real king. As he experiences close calls on his life he has to begin to face the unthinkable - Loesp is not what he seems.

[pgmcc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Matter” is a tale of political intrigue, medieval war, betrayal, injustice, and honour. Oh, and galactic scale.It tells the tale of three siblings who have taken different paths in life and how they end up, as a result of a family tragedy, struggling for the same thing; the honour of their family name.In telling this tale Banks has created a new concept in cosmic habitats; the Shellworld. The Shellworld is a planet (in this case, artificial) that has 16 internal levels of which 14 are habitable. I can see the more nerdy among us working out the scale of a Shellworld using the parameters provided sporadically throughout the text; each level 1,400km high, 2million towers on each of the 14 habitable levels to support the level above. (Ok! Yes! I did start thinking about sketching out a Shellworld cut-away diagram and estimating the size of the Shellworld. Problem was, I didn’t spot an estimate for the thickness of the ceilings/floors, and there was nothing relating to the density of the material to assist in the calculation of the gravitational strength on each level.)The Shellworld is likely to generate as much interest as Niven’s Ring World and Shaw’s Orbitsville. Of course, Bank’s Shellworld is much more stable.Enough of the “nerdy” techno-babble.The Shellworld is simply one element of “Matter”, and is merely a backdrop to the story, albeit pretty crucial to the ultimate dénouement.“Matter” takes one of the siblings on a journey of self-discovery involving his being snatched unexpectedly from his privileged lifestyle to a life where he can trust no-one, he is powerless to shape his own destiny, and where he has become a figure of shame.His brother is unwittingly entrapped and experiences his own growing moments that force him to mature in ways he had not expected.The third sibling, Djan Seriy Anaplian, has travelled far away as part of, if you would excuse the pun, a cultural exchange. She has been away from her Shellworld home for fifteen years when word reaches her of the family tragedy that is central to the entire book.As in every IMB novel, there are wonderful alien life forms. Iain has shown great imagination in developing their physiology, environment and technology. In a number of his other novels the aliens have portrayed strongly human personalities, but in “Matter” many of them are very alien. Having said that however, “Matter” is one of Iain’s most human Culture novels.Other topics dealt with in the book are the morality of killing other people, the sense of matrimonial entrapment, and the whole concept of religion and its role as a useful tool in controlling the populace.Iain’s ending to “Matter” was somewhat different from what I had expected, but interesting nonetheless, and, as so often is the case in Culture novels, on a grand scale.On several occasions I have seen Iain say that he has tried, but not succeeded at writing a powerfully political novel. While “Matter” is not powerfully political, it does have many parallels with current world affairs and the role of technologically advanced civilisations involved in warfare with less advanced civilisations.This was one of those books I was really sorry to finish. I relished the opportunities to sit down and surround myself with the universe Iain had created. It was a real joy.

[imyril · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A complex tale best described as an intricate game of three-dimensional chess, narrated by two pawns and a rook, which is turned upside down when a non-player knocks the board over.Mind-boggling world-building as expected from Banks and some moments of highly entertaining faux-Shakespearean farce, but the novel suffers from poor pacing and little character development, although there are at least sympathetic characters in play. Better than I remembered from my first reading, but still far from a favourite Culture novel.

[jonarnold_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One of the bittersweet joys of a favourite author dying is the impulse to revisit them, to pay tribute by rediscovering what made them so special to you. Or even, if you’d lost touch with them a little, to fill in the holes in their work that you missed. I rediscovered the joys of Banks the winter before he died via a charity shop copy of Stonemouth and randomly picking up Transition, which had been sitting on my shelves for a couple of years. So I’ve since been on a random voyage through his back catalogue, to look for the spark plucking Use Of Weapons from a library gave me. It spoiled me a little; that it essentially ended in the middle of the story meant it deftly avoided what’s usually been Banks’ big weakness, that his books usually seem to stop rather than end.Being a Banks SF novel this is a book of bold ideas. The big one here is the Shellworld, a world comprised of different levels with different inhabitants on each level and God at its heart. The central story begins with a regicide and the plot strands revolve around the three surviving children of the king Orestin, the prince regent who gradually becomes aware of plots against him, Fermin, the heir to the throne who witnesses his father’s death who goes offworld to seek help against the regicide tyl Loesp, and Djal, who’s become a Culture Special Circumstances agent. For much of the novel it appears that this is of paramount concern to us, tyl Loesp’s regicide and its consequences driving the actions of the main characters. This being a Culture novel though things aren’t quite so simple – if nothing else we’d probably end up with a similar book to Inversions and Banks has never been interested in going over old ground. Instead the last quarter or so of the book reveals a SF Big Dumb Object (well, being a Culture novel a Big Intelligent Object) which puts everything into galactic perspective. We might wonder initially what’s so important about a relatively primitive king on a backwater planet being overthrown . Banks, with his universe scaled sense of perspective, has us asking the wrong question. As Djal muses late on (she’s given to didactic musing) she doesn’t really matter on any grand scale. And this is where what appears to be a broken backed structure, where the last quarter of the book has entirely different concerns to the first three quarters, is actually clever. The people are mere ants. What at first appears world-consumingly important is actually insignificant in the face of world changing events. In that regard it’s very much a novel of the first decade of the 21st century, echoing 9/11. Our small, petty concerns were put into perspective by the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Banks ups the ante on that, putting events on one world into a galactic scale. The title can be seen as a question rather than a statement: how much do any of us really matter? We might not like the answer he gives us.

[bhutton_10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Typical culture book, meddling ships, SC interventions and clueless lower order societies. Also a typically abrupt unsatisfying ending but the journey more than makes up for it.

[alexandria_annex · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a good sci-fi story. It took me 51 weeks to read. It was a 350 page story written into a 593 page book. I think he put too much irrelevant detail into the book. The last 150 pages were very exciting and enjoyable.

[ub1707 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not my favourite Iain M Banks, but I do love his culture universe.

[elenchus_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A story of Contact and Special Circumstances, this time from the perspective of a civilisation within Culture (the Sarl of Sursamen) but not belonging to one of the High-Level Involved species: most Sarl are unaware of (at best, vaguely aware of) the Culture and other civilizations, though they are watched carefully by them. This perspective subtly shifted through the character of Djan Seriy who left to join Contact, but remains in training even as she returns to Sursamen for a family emergency. In effect, someone familiar with both civilizations, and not wholly belonging to either.In Banks's space opera, species stand in for individual personalities, somewhat obscuring what elsewise might be a familiar plot or interaction. Banks complicates this with court intrigue playing out at the level of individuals within some of these species, serving as the sub-plots of a typical novel. The denoument, in retrospect, is a straightforward whodunit, though by no means did I see it coming.//The intriguing idea of Shellworlds, hollow, tiered planets manufactured by an absent civilisation (and how they are adapted, fought over, and revered by other species); and collectively which comprise a network of nodes throughout a galaxy, to uncertain purpose (defense? offensive weapon?). Sursamen is a Shellworld, with civilisations on tiers or layers within the world, not always aware of the others. The Sarl are on the 8th, counting from the surface, about midway to the core at which resides a being (Xinthian) regarded by the Sarl as the World God and by the Culture as a semi-sublimed species. Shellworlds complement Banks's conception of Orbitals featured in other Culture novels, and supplemented here with the concept of the Morthanveld Nestworld, a series of strands / tubes (the "twigs" of the metaphorical nest) braided together, each filled with water so as to serve as a habitat, and created on a scale far vaster than the Shellworld: "such a scale that engineering and physics started to become the same thing". [391]Djan Seriy's reflections on her training and exposure to Culture and its role in galactic pan-civilization: "The implication [of her exposure to 'the terrible things people could do to each other'], though, was that such ghastliness was an affliction, and could be at least partially cured. The Culture represented the hospital, or perhaps the whole caring society, Contact was the physician and SC the anaesthetic and the medicine. Sometimes the scalpel." [168-69]

[stuart10er_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyable, but not my favorite Culture novel. It was partly set in a shell world with a quasi-medieval king and a story of usurpation of power. It is a muddle of a story as powers, both internal and external to the kingdom, struggle for supremacy. It ends badly for pretty much every one. Not sure if there is a moral there.

[bakudreamer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

They really should animate the Culture books ( similar to IRIA )

[nmele_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this latest Culture novel we get a wider look at galactic society while looking at a long-standing fascination of Banks--war and political power. Can't say too much but I will say that Banks is exploring a number of things in the course of this seeming space-opera. In "How To Write" Richard Rhodes distinguishes fiction from all other forms of writing because he says fiction is all free association whereas in most other forms of writing one is constrained by checkable facts, like history. "Matter" is a masterpiece of free association by Banks.

[jeanned_14 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Space opera meets feudal court intrigue in the eighth installment of Banks' Culture series. The reader follows Prince Ferbin and his servant Holse (think Frodo and Sam) as they journey from their civilization's appointed level on an artificial world in search of Ferbin's sister. He seeks her assistance in avenging their father's assassination. Djan's position as a black-ops Special Circumstances agent for the Culture makes her particularly suited for the task. This sets the stage for a clash between races of the technologically advanced Culture as they manipulate more primitive societies to advance their own inscrutable ends. This novel was short-listed for the 2009 Prometheus Award and Locus Award. My rating: 6 stars out of a possible 10.

[robertday_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another entry in Banks' annals of the Culture, and once again, it's something different and new. The point of view is from a dynastic ruling family occupying a realm which is on one level of a sort of nested Dyson sphere (except there's sixteen levels, all told). A power struggle erupts when the monarch is assassinated by an ambitious courtier, and the displaced princes - one of which witnessed the assassination and has to run - try to cope with the new situation. But to complicate matters, their sister has left the world and has become a Special Circumstances operative for the Culture. And as events unfold, it becomes clear that there is more going on than just some swordplay and steampunkish fantasy.As ever, the world-building and characterisation is good. The Shellworld is well-realised, and the reactions of the inhabitants to their position is interesting; they know how their world is structured, they know that the greater world is run and guarded by other races whose ways and motives they don't fully grasp, and they know that there are other civilisations out there who are more advanced than they are. How that affects their actions and attitudes is one of the interesting things about this book.The plotting is fairly linear, even though the viewpoint character keeps changing. The ending, however, is rather abrupt - all die (O the embarrassment) (except for those who are from the Culture, as they are backed up fairly regularly). It would be interesting to know what the political fallout was from the events of this novel, as various races are shown to be interfering in ways that they really shouldn't have been. The one thing that turned out as I rather suspected was Choubris Holse, faithful retainer of one of the princes, who manages to get out alive and suddenly finds himself to be a bit of a player, as a) he found the worlds of the Culture to be rather stimulating when he finally came across them, and b) suddenly there's no royal family left to run things, so Special Circumstances take a steadying hand in local affairs. Whether that is a good thing or not remains to be seen. I warmed to Holse quite a bit, and would like to see him return at some point in the future so we can see how things turned out for him and his corner of his world.Don't miss the final chapter in the book, which can be found after a set of appendices detailing worlds, ship names, characters and some other useful information for anyone dabbling in the Culture - something Banks hasn't really done so far, but which I suspect others have and put pressure on him to do the job for them this time round!

[malcrf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mmmmmmmmm not his best. Grew on me, but took a long time to do so.

[leo_depart · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A page-turner like every m. banks novel I have read so far, packed with great ideas, indulging characters and fascinating scenarios. However, I was not entirely convinced by the grand finale of the book. The very end left me bit unsatisfied but was of course radically coherent.

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the latest Culture novel, and in general I really like Culture novels, but this one is a bit flat. Banks has dreamed up a new living space concept, the Shellworld. An entirely artificial world built by some Sublimed species that consists of a hollow world with multiple layers. For some reason, this world is inhabited by humans at a 16th century technology level + a bit of steam technology. These humans come into contact with Culture humans when a conspiracy involves the royal family. As usual, this book contains Bank's usual digression into the 'why there is no God' theme, this time in the many, many times disproved theory that there cannot be a God, because God would not allow cruelty and suffering. Its a minor and annoying digression, but in theory supplies the title of the book. The ending is odd and unsatisfying, and lately the Culture books have left me with the feeling that there's no good reason for the Culture to exist.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ferbin looked around again. "How extraordinary," he breathed, then coughed."Extraordinarily boring, sir," Holse said, frowning at his piece of dried meat. "We've been sailing over this water for the past five long-days or so and while the prospect is most impressive at first and the air bracing, you'd be amazed how quickly the impressiveness and the bracingness become tedious when that's all there is to contemplate all day. Well, all there is to contemplate all day save for your good self, of course, sir, and frankly you were no circus of boundless fun in your sleeping state.This was the longest of the Culture books so far, and it really didn't need to be. Djan Seriy Anaplian's journey and that of Ferbin and Holse seemed to drag on forever, just as the flight across the Cumuloforms' level of Sursamen did for Holse. I thought that the three of them were never going to meet up and return to succour Oramen. When things finally came to a head, the story was over and done with way too quickly, and just came to a dead halt. and you could easily have missed the final chapter, lurking after the glossary.The process of more primitive cultures being mentored by ever more highly developed Involved species, is interesting, however. The Sarl and Deldeyn are not yet Involved species, being confined to one planet, while the Oct and the Aultridia are at the lower level of Involved species. Above them come the Nariscene and above them, at roughly the same level as the Culture, come the Morthanveld. The Shellwords are fascinating structures too, with their fourteen levels populated by different species, lit by rollstars and fixstars which divide time into long-days and short-days as well as long-years and short-years, not that I could visualise how it all worked, unfortunately. Although the Oct saw themselves as being descended from the long-dead makers of the Shellwords, I suspected that things would go wrong when they started to take an interest in the goings-on at the Falls, and go wrong they did!The Oct were also not slow in pointing out that they were, by their own claim at least, directly descended from the Involucra - the very people who had designed and constructed the deeply wonderful Shellworlds - and so part of a line of almost God-like creatures nearly a billion years old. By comparison, the Aultridia were ghastly parasitic newbie slime barely worthy of the term civilised.

[ennui2342 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's great to have another Culture novel from Banks after so long, however I didn't really feel this was up to his usual form. The book is quite weighty and certainly took a while to get going before hitting it's stride in the last fifth culminating in a rather abrupt, and what felt like curtailed, ending.My trudge through the first half was probably effected by me dipping in and out over a few weeks before getting some dedicated time for the second half - never a good way to read a Banks, which usually benefit from a straight through reading. I also feel somewhat cheated when I buy a SF novel which has a significant plotline set in a primative culture -I want space opera! Both of these probably colured my reactions to this novel.On the positive side it's great to see that Banks still has the creativity to push out genuinely new ideas like the shellworlds of this novel. It would be too easy to just repeat past Culture tropes, but Banks keeps on throwing innovative ideas into his novels which keeps that excitement at exploring more of the Culture universe alive. Overall a must read for a Banks fan, but if you're a newcomer, start with some if his earlier works.

[ranaverde_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gripping... though I'm still undecided as to what I think about the ending.

[psiloiordinary_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another excellent Culture novel from Banks. An interesting theme of perspective echoed at various levels through the plot and characters. His usual dollop of hugely massive imagination still impresses.Ultimately he still manage to show good triumphing over evil, even if he keeps you guessing which is which until the very end.Great science fiction that makes you think.

[pauliharman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

banks does sensawunda like no-one else I know. A war between primitive (by galactic standards) civilisations on two different levels of an onion-like Shellworld reveals an ancient sentient artefact buried for millennia. The caretakers of the world believe it is their ancestor. The Culture representatives are somewhat skeptical. A very human story set against a backdrop of enormous scale.

[seanvk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like many of his books, he builds his story slowly. He applies layer upon layer of story and character development. Eventually you reach a point where the pieces come together and the book unfolds, not unlike a nova. Part of his reason for doing this approach is that the Culture series of books don't follow a particular order. You can pick up any of them and begin reading.As with all Culture series books by Iain M. Banks, this is no exception when it comes to his depth of characters, acerbic and clever humor, and field of play spanning amazing invention on a galactic scale.But at the end it is a human story tying all of these threads together - one that most readers can relate. Part of the reason I enjoy books by the likes of Iain M. Banks or Neal Asher to name a few is their skill at not only creating a complex and creative future but also real human characters that form the heart of every story. This book was no exception. I enjoyed it.

[sarah_rubyred · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting muse on how less-developed worlds live alongside highly developed races. How would we feel to know that there were alien(or just highly developed human) worlds and cultures out there that had more weapons, knowledge, inventions etc. Would we see them as a threat? Or would we want to leave our own (medieval in this case) world and join them? Or would we just accept it the way it was?I can't imagine living happily on my planet with the Culture above my head exploring the universe and not wanting to be a part of it. But maybe that's because I am a sci-fi fan.Instead of his normal excellent adventures of the Culture, exploring new social rifts, Banks has written an interesting book which touches on many different themes. I really enjoyed it, packed full of good quality sci-fi. I did find it a bit slow in the middle and then a bit too quick at the end. Great ending though, so maybe that was the way it had to be.

[morven_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this one immensely, but it's not the best of Iain Banks by any means. The settings are, by and large, delicious, and if you like Banks especially for the environments in which the stories take place, you'll have a good time here. The major characters are reasonably good, too. At first, I wanted to say that the pacing is off, but it really isn't, because Banks set out to have the pacing precisely this way; the slow creep as things set in motion, almost invisibly, the momentum building in the background until suddenly we, and the characters, realize what's going on and how far along it is, and the headlong rush, faster and faster and faster until the SMACK into the brick wall of fate at the end.No, rather, the problem is that the first part, when things are slow, is just too boring. There were places where I was sorely tempted just to skip forward or skim-read. Worse, by the end it was obvious that it wasn't a deceptive story-thread where the normality hid important plot points later on; most of the boring bits were utterly irrelevant to the overall plot, and just served as filler. Banks has done filler before much, much better. I do think part of the problem was the low-tech setting of most of the worst parts; Banks didn't give himself the scope for any interesting flights-of-fancy to make for interesting filler, and there wasn't even enough blackly-humorous sadism to fill the time.Oh, and it's a downer ending in a manner all too familiar to Banks readers. If you like his books, that probably won't put you off, but it's a good warning to those who aren't so keen on it.Don't mistake me; I had a great time with this book; Banks at his best, though, can do much, much better.