The Hydrogen Sonata

So. We arrive at Iain Banks's last SF novel, his last Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata. I'm pleased to say that, after the last two novels, Matter and Surface Detail, where the Culture seemed a peripheral presence, this is a return to the rip-roaring space opera of Consider Phlebas or Excession. And while it's not quite in that league it is a fine and fitting last journey with the Culture and it's idiosyncratic Ships.

The plot is the usual Banksian conundrum with alien civilizations (in this case the soon-to-Sublime Gzilt), a mysterious, millennia old citizen of the Culture and a deep, dark secret that may, or may not, have consequences for the Gzilt. It's a sprawling book with many interweaving plot strands, but the prose, as ever with Banks, is fluid, witty and easy to read.

The joy for me is the presence of a plethora of Culture ships, with suitably strange names. Not since Excession has a Culture novel featured so many ships, I think, and indeed the events of that earlier novel are referenced here.

The sadness is that this, with Banks's death, is the last Culture story. He, and they, will be missed.