Rich wrote: >Paradise breeds few warriors. Or perhaps it just prefers to keep its >hands clean. In any case, the Special Circumstances agent Diziet Sma >needs the man called Cheradenine Zakalwe, a soldier recruited not from >the Culture but from a primitive, war-torn planet beyond its frontiers, >for one last mission. Like many Culture novels, what follows is carnage >not on a galactic but on an intimate scale as we follow the man both >through that last mission and, in a second story nestling in the >interstices of the first, back towards the traumas that made him who he >is. In his usual wonderful prose, Banks presents a parable about the >price of a utopia that believes that ultimately believes only in >statistical improvements, and about a haunted man struggling to find >redemption. For me, it is his best novel.
Much better than mine. I think my complete inability to describe it beyond "It's bloody great!" stems from the fact that I haven't reread it, and I read it for the first time about 8 years ago. I need to do something about this but I have so many new books to read. Lal GSV Nearly finished Otherland! xROU About bloody time too! xGCU I am at a loss as to whether I am still reading because it is very good or merely because I want to find out the big secret. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and solely for the intended addressee(s). Unauthorised reproduction, disclosure, modification, and/or distribution of this email may be unlawful. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete it from your system. The views expressed in this message do not necessarily reflect those of LIFFE Holdings Plc or any of its subsidiary companies. -----------------------------------------------------------------------
