This review of Iain M. Banks´ new novel The Algebraist has a good point to make; parts of the novel feel that the editor has been on holiday and that Banks himself could have written them over at least once more, should have put more effort at the novel. It´s like a house that looks great outside, but whose interiors are not yet finished. Certainly this is an inferior work compared to Look to Windward(2001), but continues a recent trend in the author´s oeuvre. Especially in his mainstream work Banks has lately had this Kerouacian tendency to leave things raw.

Still, this isn´t a bad book, I enjoy it too much to claim so. On the negative side, it also has these Banksian moments of sadism that are - as usual in his work - totally unrelated to the plot plus rather lame comic effects that don´t work - like Fassin Taak´s uncle, who has transformed himself to a walrus descending into senility - and Banks tends to explain things too much himself, instead of letting the characters and their actions show us this new universe he has invented, but when the voice of the author fades on the background and the characters have the centerstage, it´s quite enjoyable. Reminded me much of the Against a Dark Background(1993). But if one starts to read the book waiting it to prove that Orbit´s hype - "The most eagerly awaited science fiction novel of this decade" - is worthy of the book, one will certainly be disappointed, because this isn´t even the best science fiction novel Banks himself has published during this decade, this century, this millennium, during the last ten years etc.