thoroughly enjoyed ‘Use of Weapons’ and would place it on par with ‘Player of Games’. I am, in truth, not so keen on guns-blazing sci-fi, so my enjoyment of ‘Use of Weapons’ was tempered by those aspects, though I enjoyed the anti-war sentiments it entertained in the books later stages. There was little political intrigue, and the book focused heavily on the character of Zakalwe, his psychology, his history, and on the various conflicts he had been active in – but his character is far from shallow. He is no token heroic figure. It was this aspect that I enjoyed the most – attempting to understand why Zakalwe functioned the way that he did, and Banks did a fantastic job of adding complexity to this main character without revealing too much. I was kept guessing right up until the end.

Banks also does a fantastic job of giving a sense of place to the various planets and systems we are lead through. Some have more flesh than others, but the various levels of development, the natures of the conflicts, and the situations in which Zakalwe finds himself are far from repetitive and highly imaginative. The danger here is always that, if the characterisation comes across as weak, then the reader has nothing to grip on to.

It’s also the first of his sci-fi books that have reached the level of horror I have experienced in his literary works. There’s a Cronenberg feel to the situations in ‘Use of Weapons’. Visceral, in some cases almost comic gore, a real blood spatter drama to some situations.