Matter

Culture Series, Book 8

By: Iain M. Banks

Narrated by: Toby Longworth

Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.

The intricate structure of a Shellworld - an arti­ficial planet of spheres-within-spheres - is matched only by the machinations of its inhabitants.

On the eighth sphere of Sursamen, a man witnesses the murder of his father and flees, searching for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother, this means a life lived under constant threat of treachery, while for their sister, Djan Seriy Anaplian, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.

Anaplian is not who she once was. She has become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy.

Concealing her new identity - and her particular set of abilities - might be a dangerous strategy. In the world to which she returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.

The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art

Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist

©2008 Iain M. Banks (P)2008 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson

Intelligent, Entertaining, & Moving Space Opera

Iain M. Banks' Matter is an entertaining and intelligent space opera, using galactic civilizations of various humanoid and non-humanoid species at various stages of technological and cultural development, impressive artifacts (like giant shellworlds that house concentric, inhabited levels; intelligent battle suits that talk to you, shoot for you, and turn your urine into water; and AI spaceships who give themselves droll names like Don't Try This at Home), and exciting action and battle scenes to explore themes about matter, culture, power, freedom, growth, love, and human nature. The ending is shocking, fitting, and moving. The characters are compelling. The story is humorous, horrifying, awe-inspiring, and thought-provoking.

And the reader, Toby Longworth, is fantastic. His voice is appealingly gravelly but clear, he understands the story, and he reads it perfectly, effectively changing his voice for different characters, among them power-hungry lords, foppish princes, grizzled generals, cold killers, rustic and wise servants, strong women, drugged prostitutes, fanatic insectoid aliens, cool, caring, or inimical AIs, and more, all sounding just right for their personalities and situations. He even talks like a mild American for this amoral ex-Culture agent who's running an endless war (by recycling soldiers) on some planet for the vicarious pleasure of his alien employers.

All in all a great listen.

Like Lord of the Rings meets Ghost in the Shell

A little slow to start, but most longish sci-fi books are. All back story is paid off sooner or later. Iain Banks' perfectly timed, but not over used, and rather scottish use of profainity and toilet humor are conveyed hilariously by the narrator and help to keep things interesting and enjoyable, even when the topic is some what darker.

Ending is unexpected, emotionally charged and satisfying but leaves you feeling that everything will be all right after abilities noted earlier in the story.

Back story never feels empty and all that seems excessively detailed at first, comes to a head toward the end.

Very much the same as Consider Phlebus, just bette

It seems Ian M Banks is modern writer of tragedy. In the advanced, everything is possible, Culture where machine and human has merged in ways which you cannot imagine, he succeeds to bring a tragic element in, that leaves you with more questions than answers.
I am struggling to listen to Toby Longworth. From time to time my mind just opts out, which meant that I had to relisten certain parts of the story.
All in all, it is a good book, but I would suggest that you read/ listen "Consider Phlebas" and "Player of Games" if you haven't yet been introduced to the Banks' Culture novels.
Still, this is a worthwhile listen!

Nicely balanced

The Culture Universe has really matured in this one. Cool worlds, nice adventures, lovable characters and creatures.

Much more than a 'read'

I listen to my audiobooks as I commute (1.5 hours a day). It's amazing I'm still alive having been so engrossed in this book.

The story has all the wonder of Ian M Bank's vivid imagination. He conjours up fantastical species and worlds that require no effort on my part to suspend disbelief. A beautiful story that tries to describe the problems that might face species as they reache their full potential through scientific discovery. The author does so without coming off as pretentious, trite, or belittling the audience's intelligence. More than once he made my life seem very trivial when held against the vastness of existance. A tragic story, but captivating the whole way through.

Toby Longworth's narration is a credit to the story and Toby himself. Toby imbues each character with his/her/it's own personality without sounding at all ridiculous. You always know who's talking and get an incredible sense of who they are. I'd like to wax lyrically about Toby's performance, but to save you the pain of my inelloquant banter, I'll just say that it was superb.

Great start, interesting middle, lackluster ending

I'll try to keep it short and absolutely spoiler free.

I really enjoyed the premise of the book, following the plots of a medieval/industrial civilization located on a shell world, in turn overlooked by multiple 'modern' races. That they were aware of the nature of their world and civilization (or at least, the leaders were) made it all the more interesting.

The concept of a shell world was really quite nice too, and I like the thought that went into it- sufficiently mysterious and weird, but making sense in an odd, suspend-your-disbelief kind of way.

The characters were appealing and interesting too, and I was quite curious to see where the story would take them, since the book seemingly kept on building and building to some sort of great reveal. A really nice climax/confrontation where we learn about the ultimate motives and plans of the various players involved.

Sadly, it ends abruptly and it's over in what felt like five minutes. None of the questions I had were answered, a lot of the things I thought would matter turned out not to and I feel just a little bit like towards the end, the author lost interest and just wanted to get it over with. There is an epilogue to offer the tiniest closure, but it feels more cheap than satisfying (and seemingly goes against the characters development through the book).

The performance was good, although it took some time to adjust to the new fella- and for 4/5ths of the book, it had me interested and captivated which is why I still give it a pretty decent rating.

I don't think I'd really -recommend- it to anyone, but if you like the The Culture novels, this is a nice easy listen... but nothing really satisfying.

Had a really tough time to get into it.

I am not sure I really like the narrator here, it was really hard to penetrate the book.