Book Twelve 2014: 

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

Not the first of the Culture novels of the late Iain M. Banks I’ve read and I wonder if that has coloured my feelings about it. I read the exceptional The Player Of Games last year (they don’t run in sequence so you can, in theory, read them any old way you like) and this is just a little less pacy, a bite more long-winded in terms of the action that happens, a little less cerebral.

There were times when I just wanted him to get the hell on with it, which is a terrible thing to say about a writer I like and admired hugely.

Decent, just not as exceptional as Book 2.

Will be reading the rest of the series without question.