In many ways, this is a good introduction for those who have yet to discover the joys of this excellent series because it's far more linear than some.
One thing Banks does particularly well is to make his books completely accessible as stand alones, explaining the concept afresh each time without going over old ground for long time fans, of which there are many. It's 25 years since Iain M Banks introduced us to the utopian Culture series of sci fi adventure books and The Hydrogen Sonata is the 13th in the series.
Highly entertaining although not the best in the series by some distance. Praise for the Culture series: 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata Other books by Iain M.Summary: The sentient Culture ships feature more heavily than in many of this series of space operas, with the usual wit and sarcasm. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilisation are likely to prove its most perilous. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted - dead, not alive. Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilisations: they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence. An ancient people, organised on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. It is, truly, the End Days for the Gzilt civilisation. Banks, a modern master of science fiction. The tenth Culture book from the awesome imagination of Iain M.
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