Iain M. Banks, The Algebraist
Apr. 3rd, 2005 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienIf anyone was wondering, this is definitely not a Culture novel; unlike the other non-culture 'M' novels, it explictly isn't even set in the same universe. This is a different galaxy-spanning civilization, with its own history and politics and physics, a civilization where AI is proscribed, tied together by a sparse and fragile network of wormholes. It's still very distinctively Banks, full of unlikely architecture, vast set-pieces, and moments of stark brutality and inventive nastiness.
I noticed something else, too, that's hard to put a finger on; some distinctively British tone that turns up in the work of Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross and Terry Pratchett, a sort of matter-of-fact understatedness in the face of evil, maybe.
I noticed something else, too, that's hard to put a finger on; some distinctively British tone that turns up in the work of Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross and Terry Pratchett, a sort of matter-of-fact understatedness in the face of evil, maybe.