Iain M. Banks: Against a Dark Background Tsp (1993, Little, Brown Book Group Limited)
English language
Published March 11, 1993 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
Sharrow was once the leader of a personality-attuned combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the civilization based around the planet Golter. Now she is hunted by the Huhsz, a religious cult which believes that she is the last obstacle before the faith's apotheosis, and her only hope of escape is to find the last of the apocalyptically powerful Lazy Guns before the Huhsz find her.Her journey through the exotic Golterian system is a destructive and savage odyssey into her past, and that of her family and of the system itself.
This... was a slog. I really enjoy Bank's books in general, but found myself finding other things to do, rather than to continue reading this. It dragged in a lot of places, and lacked the entertaining world-building that makes the culture novels so engaging. There were some bright spots in action or interesting concepts, but a lot of the ideas didn't really go anywhere.
Yet again, struggled through one of his books. I don't like any of the characters. Clearly a lot of the situations are supposed to be very funny, but without that connection I wasn't really in the mood. The second half of the book picks up the pace, but then a lot of the characters depart, for different reasons.
Struggled. Plot, characters, style, just felt haphazard and confusing.
Far removed from my experience with his exemplary Culture series.
