Eventually, I realized I could selectively follow the main story and ignore the rest without feeling like I’d missed much.Īlthough The Hydrogen Sonata never came together for me as a whole story, it certainly offered the smorgasbord of tantalizing lucubrations Culture travelers learn to expect. These sections kept me abreast of important developments but also catered to my lazier tendencies as a reader. I’m not sure if I should criticize or credit Banks for including discussions between Minds that serve as condensed recountings of the book’s main events. This was not due to lack of information, but rather my own indifference. Even during the book’s climax, I found myself reading sections about characters with whom I was only vaguely familiar.
The Hydrogen Sonata contains a hefty cast of characters and Minds, most of which are entirely forgettable. While Banks’ interwoven narratives are somewhat difficult to follow, they also suffer from a much more critical flaw: they don’t provide nearly enough emotional mass to keep the reader’s attention in close orbit.Īnother problem is Banks’ stale characterization, which has never been the strongest point of the Culture series. This compelling premise is bogged down by a host of ancillary intergalactic squabbles that take more away from Cossont’s journey than they add to it.
The central plot follows Cossont, a four-armed Gzilt woman who––with the aid of the Culture––must reconnect with an old friend to uncover sensitive information about the provenance of the Gzilt holy book, mere days before her civilization’s chosen date for Sublimation. The Hydrogen Sonata, like its eponymous musical arrangement, is a desultory and cacophonous experience graced with intermittent windows of inspiration.īanks’ most bothersome blunder stems from a glaring inconsistency in the appeal of the novel’s many plot threads, most of which meander at length before lapsing into unsatisfying conclusions. Banks to be one of the brightest stars in the sky of scifi authorship, but this visit to the Culture universe failed to consistently command my attention. It is fitting that the final Culture novel should ruminate so radiantly on matters of longevity and disembodiment, but disappointing that it should also be so decidedly dull.
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