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It's simple: if you like Culture novels, you'll like this one. It's not the best Culture novel - that's Excession - but it's still excellent.

If you don't know the Culture novels, don't start here: start with The Player of Games, and work your way up in the order they've been released. Banks is a giant, and his highly imaginative Culture series is one of the best things that ever happened to SciFi, and his premature death one of the worst.

4/5