I've just finished 'Matter' by Iain M Banks.
I think he's still going soft in his old age.
I enjoyed Matter. It was certainly a lot better than his last non-SF work (The Steep Approach to Garbadale)
I enjoyed it too, he just seems to have an urge to wrap everything up in a happy ending these days though.
Just about to start Matter.
Haven't got around to buying The Steep Approach to Garbadale as I didn't think much too of Dead Air (although it's better than I thought it was going to be having read the blurb) - is it worth a read?
I was very excited when Matter came out but found it disappointing. Taken in isolation it's a perfectly OK book, but taken as part of the series I thought the Culture elements felt bolted on.
His non-SF writing I gave up on ages ago, though I loved the Wasp Factory and Complicity and the Crow Road.
Anyway, what have I been reading... I've just finished all Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels - Berlin Noir, The One From the Other and A Quiet Flame. Apparently there's a new one coming out in September - If The Dead Rise not - and I am drooling for it.
I don't know how I'd never been alerted to this series. It's as good as finding that Raymond Chandler is alive and well and writing novels about a hard-boiled German detective.
On holiday next week I will be taking The Rider, which I've also somehow never read. And In Search of Robert Millar.
And I will try to read David Simon's Homicide but I suspect my wife - currently undergoing withdrawal symptoms having finished The Wire box sets - will probably give me a choice between handing it over or losing a testicle. Luckily she's a fast reader.
