A Son of the Rock

Orbit, 2008, 593 p.

Matter is set mostly on Sursamen; one of a series of constructs known as Shellworlds, which contain sixteen or so concentric levels, each succeeding level with its own thermonuclear generators, called Shellstars or Rollstars, for light and heat, with every level supported by pillars which taper towards the exterior and provide a means for travelling between the levels. At the centre of each Shellworld is a guardian, one of the Xinthian, which the Sarl, inhabitants of Sursamen’s level 8, call the WorldGod. So far, so Big Dumb Object, an obvious attempt to inculcate “sensawunda.”

There is a small flaw here in that the internal dynamics of Sursamen’s levels 8 and 9 seem to relate more to “normal” planetary origins than to a built world. But let that pass.*

More serious is that Matter doesn’t seem to know what sort of book it wants to be. The scenes set on the two levels described are more like a typical fantasy – warring armies, a betrayed and murdered king, a Prince forced to flee, a naïve younger Prince-in-waiting, a treacherous regent, assassination plots – though the technology is more advanced than that implies, while away from this we have scenes set in the Culture and its neighbouring civilisations, “ghost” spaceships, intergalactic chicanery and ancient artefacts coming to life.

Banks does tie all these together but not without a huge amount of background being loaded onto us. (Chapter four in particular is one huge info dump.) In some respects, though, the multiple strands mean reading Matter is a bit like suddenly switching between a roller coaster ride and a trip in a horse-drawn carriage. In the end the gel is far from perfect and the climactic finale seems oddly inconclusive.

I was, too, brought up short by the use of the word internment for a burial. This sort of thing irrationally annoys me. Does no-one employ proof readers?

There are some philosophical asides on the ilk of how the problems of little people aren’t worth a hill of beans in this troubled universe of ours – the vagaries of matter – but these take up overall less than a page.

Banks can obviously do the Culture (and Space Opera in general) in his sleep. Having read Matter I’m now hankering to see how he might treat other SF scenarios.

*( I was tempted to say “no matter” there.)