Surface Detail Grade-B+Hope nobody minds a long book review but to do this justice it needs a bit of explaining.
This is about the tenth of Banks' Culture books. He does a good job of giving introductory explanations of the story elements that have carried over from the other books. However, those explanations don't help when these elements combine in this new story. DON"T read this book if you haven't read some of the early Culture story its just confusing. But the beauty of a continuing series like this is that complex elements can be explored further. I should try to explain some of the elements;
1) The universe is so old that civilizations have risen and fallen many times, new ones are advancing still. The Culture is one of many at the end of its development. Infinitely resourced, have anything you want. Old civilisations don't die (unless someone blows them up) they move to another phase of existence called subliming. Different levels of civ exist next to each other, the older ones struggling to contain the younger ones who would blow themselves up if they got their hands on more advanced technology. It is frowned upon to interfere with less advanced civs but the Culture do like to meddle; thinking they know whats best for others.
2) Mind and body are loosely linked. Copying personalities is old tech so if you die you can be revented; your mindstate put into a new body or any body type or machine- you choose. Story threads with people wearing armoured tanks etc are common.
3) Artificial Intelligence has grown far beyond human intelligence. Civs have to choose how much trust to put in their machines ie war ships run by AI,. The Culture just lets the machines run everything. It is not clear if these Minds are running things for the humans benefit or for their own.
OK enough, technobabble, Banks isn't interested he never uses maths or engineeering to explain much. He is more interested in machine personalities or what is like to live in different bodies. Most of his books read like Travelogues visiting more exotic worlds and habitats. But he does have a way with action, BIG action sequences- wars run by machines.
His new theme in Surface Detail regards mind states and virtual reality. Some advanced civs having kept their religious beliefs and a belief in celestial reward and punishment after death recreate their heavens and hells to place mindstates in. Some other civs disagree with this barbaric looking practice. How The Culture feel about this isn't ever clear but this book is about a war to destroy these virtual hells. I know how daft this sounds, like I say it makes more sense as the tenth book not the first.
Characters include a woman killed early on, revented and then travelling back to take revenge on the man who killed her; an AI in a worryingly advanced warship's body with a deranged personality, some cute aliens getting a bit too big for their boots, and a horrible businessman with too much knowledge about where the Hells are being stored; trying to blackmail everyone with that knowledge.
Banks' books are structured like Ellroy, a chapter for each main character and then back again each storyline colliding by the end. His books slow when he goes on a travelogue flight of fancy about some strange new world, or when describing some less advanced civ which is a bit dull compared to The Culture's bells and whistles. When he gets it right (books like
Look to Windward, Excession & Matter) it is poetic, funny, taut, majestic. When it doesn't quite work like here it gets a bit flabby. There is always the danger of Deus ex Machina interventions by the Culture in the less advanced civ plotlines. This happens here but it is still cool throughout.
Banks has the advantage over a lot sci-fi writers of being a great literary figure first and an imaginer of worlds second. Insights about the nature of existence filtered through the view of advanced tech (really you can't die) are incredibly original, Shakespeare would approve.