Rating: 
Summary: Not one of his best.
Review: Banks is Scottish not English, as one of the above reviews states. Only read this book if you've read every other Banks novel and are can't do without his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Turgid and overwrought
Review: Doomed by turgid and overwrought prose, this story dies unborn. Banks seems more intrigued by his ability to present the reader with both decadent and debauched imagery than with a functional storyline, or characters that assume any more qualities than cardboard cutouts. Overall, this book comes off as being unfortunately amateurish; Banks is more enamoured with utilising his vast vocabulary than with writing a story.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful language, powerful subject
Review: first off, let me say i have read all of iain banks' books and this is different. so dont expect sci-fi "culture" entertainment.that said, this is really a great book, brilliantly written with beautiful poetic language. while banks is always a good technical writer, this novel is by far the most lyrical and poetic in language. it is also somewhat harder to follow than most of his as a consequence, but i liked that it made you think a little. also, some aspects of the story are never stated outright but only implied obliquely through the actions of other characters or implications in the main characters interior monologue. again, perhaps a bit challenging for some, but i liked it and found it consistent with the dark, murky tone of the novel. the characters are so close and personal that it really touches you in a powerful way. it reminds me of "The Killer Inside Me" (Jim Thompson) in that way. this book is disturbing in many ways, but it is also Real. it is a powerful commentary both on age-old human nature and on recent history. the combination of the close first-person narrative and the disturbing topics can be too much for some, but i found it very stimulating. this is one of the few books i read in the last year that i still think about. the themes and images will be with you for a long time. disturbing and dark yes, but brilliantly written and very powerful.
Rating: 
Summary: Sinks like a stone
Review: Here is the perfect example of why some authors should be considerably less prolific than they actually are. A stale, tired and souless post apocalyptic story with absolutely nothing new to offer. Shame Iain Banks, shame. Someone of your calibre really should have known better.
Rating:
Summary: A Song Of Stone: a dreadful effort from Iain Banks
Review: I am an avid reader of books containing challenging ideas, and after five reads over a year I am still digesting "A Song of Stone".
This book communicates the horror of the human experience better then anything I've read since "The Heart of Darkness". Banks uses a morbid and brooding tone similar to that of "The Wasp Factory" but does so with more maturity and greater lyrical precision. "A Song of Stone" is not for those readers who seek recreational escapism or morally clean and simple tales. Bank's ability to make the horrid both lovely and beautiful is his greatest strength as a writer and is probably the cause of negative reviews seen here. To enjoy this book requires you to be psychology prepared to enter a dark and occasionally monstrous world, and to allow some of your most taboo impulses to surface into conscience thought.
I consider it to be a hell of a good time- definitely a book to own rather then borrow. "A Song of Stone" along with "The Bridge" is Banks at his best. Due to it's content, most people do not consider this "appropriate" reading - I feel that is exactly the reason it should be read.
Rating:
Summary: Don't review this book after one read on a Sunday afternoon.
Review: I am an avid reader of books containing challenging ideas, and after five reads over a year I am still digesting "A Song of Stone".
This book communicates the horror of the human experience better then anything I've read since "The Heart of Darkness". Banks uses a morbid and brooding tone similar to that of "The Wasp Factory" but does so with more maturity and greater lyrical precision. "A Song of Stone" is not for those readers who seek recreational escapism or morally clean and simple tales. Bank's ability to make the horrid both lovely and beautiful is his greatest strength as a writer and is probably the cause of negative reviews seen here. To enjoy this book requires you to be psychology prepared to enter a dark and occasionally monstrous world, and to allow some of your most taboo impulses to surface into conscience thought.
I consider it to be a hell of a good time- definitely a book to own rather then borrow. "A Song of Stone" along with "The Bridge" is Banks at his best. Due to it's content, most people do not consider this "appropriate" reading - I feel that is exactly the reason it should be read.
Rating:
Summary: An author on auto-pilot
Review: I am wary of spending time on any of Ian (M) Banks's recent works. He always tries hard to experiment with new ideas and forms. But for quite some time now, he just hasn't been able to come up with any compelling material. This book covers (yet again) themes that are hallmarks of previous work, including a fascination for war and weapons, incest and the eccenticities of the aristocracy. But he has nothing particularly interesting to say about any of these, and no matter how hard Mr Banks tries to re-deal his cards these days, it is from the same old, dog-eared pack. Here, he also tries too hard to intellectualise his threadbare material, making one wonder at the end 'just what did I read that for'? Perhaps this effort could have made a reasonable short story, but I think Mr Banks must have some hardback contracts to satisfy, and so turned his thin material into his annual hardback output. It certainly shows.
Rating:
Summary: But something else
Review: I bought this book when I was visiting my parents in my native Scotland. After I read it I left it with them rather than bother keeping it for future reading - make up your own mind on my enjoyment of the book. The prose was convoluted to the point where you often had to reread passages several times to get the meaning. This is something I expect to need to do if I am reading a book on Calculus, not if I am reading for entertainment. I really didn't care whether the main character, Abel lived or died. This is probably because of his total incompetence in trying to rescue his wife, when he did fortuitously break free of his captors. I found the whole writing style tedious and pretentious. The positives would be the character Loot, who I found the most interesting in the novel, due to her swings from benevolance to total malevolance; and the author's general characterization of war as pointless and anarchaic. My disappointment was such that I may not bother with this author again - however it would appear that the general opinion of the reviews are that this is a rare mistep and that novels like the Wasp Factory may have been a shrewder choice for me.
Rating:
Summary: But something else
Review: I bought this book when I was visiting my parents in my native Scotland. After I read it I left it with them rather than bother keeping it for future reading - make up your own mind on my enjoyment of the book. The prose was convoluted to the point where you often had to reread passages several times to get the meaning. This is something I expect to need to do if I am reading a book on Calculus, not if I am reading for entertainment. I really didn't care whether the main character, Abel lived or died. This is probably because of his total incompetence in trying to rescue his wife, when he did fortuitously break free of his captors. I found the whole writing style tedious and pretentious. The positives would be the character Loot, who I found the most interesting in the novel, due to her swings from benevolance to total malevolance; and the author's general characterization of war as pointless and anarchaic. My disappointment was such that I may not bother with this author again - however it would appear that the general opinion of the reviews are that this is a rare mistep and that novels like the Wasp Factory may have been a shrewder choice for me.
Rating:
Summary: His worst yet
Review: I didn't mind that this book was ugly. But I really hated that it was ugly, boring, and stupid. There was simply nothing to hold the reader's interest in this slow-moving mishmash of sadism and decadence. The narrator is brain-hurtingly tedious; there's not one single character in the book that is either likeable or interesting, nor is there any interesting speculation or a complex or intriguing plot. Furthermore, if you are a Banks fan, you will find large chunks of this book to be unpleasantly familiar. He has recycled, not just themes, but scenes and dialogue from his earlier works. This would be OK if he had improved on them, but he hasn't. Bits that were clever in _Walking on Glass_ or _Canal Dreams_ are just boring in this. I like Banks, and I'll read his next book, but I really hope this one was an aberration and not the shape of what we should now expect from him. And, oh yeah, I found the vaguely American villain pretty irritating, too. Skip this one unless you are an absolute Banks fanatic.
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