A Body Without a Soul

Culture : Inversions :: The Company : The Empress of Mars

Except that, despite her definite skills (ie, engrossing readability), Baker doesn’t have Banks’s depth.  I’m pretty sure Inversions would be an interesting and meaningful book to someone who didn’t have any familiarity with the Culture; this book on the other hand was, sad to say, barely interesting even with the understanding of what was going on off-screen and why.

As one of the main characters helpfully points out repeatedly, the story is essentially that of the evil Eastern bankers and company men trying to force the good hard-working Western ranchers and prospectors off their land, except it’s on Mars and the Eastern bankers are British and the Western ranchers are mostly Irish.  And there are giant diamonds, not gold.

Read if you’ve read and enjoyed the rest of the Company books; ignore otherwise.  If you haven’t read any Company, go get a copy of Garden of Iden and give it a shot.