I'd put off reading this for a long time. I love Banks' books, but usually they are quite complex (the SF ones at least) and need long undisturbed periods of time to go through, which is difficult to get during one's normal life.

But a 6-day trip to Seoul, South Korea over the new year holidays was a perfect setting to finally read two of his books that I had lying around. Sightsee all day, read all evening. What more could one want from life? (Well, lots, but you get my drift.)

About this particular book, then: It's good but it has lots of things happening and they are not really tied together that much. The Genar-Hofoen/Dajeil subplot in particular falls completely flat at the end and could be removed entirely without affecting the main plot of the book at all.