by Iain M. Banks (aka Iain Banks)

isbn: 0929480066
subject: Fiction and Literature, SF, Short Stories
finished: 5/10/2000

Although I read The State of the Art several years ago, a recent visit to Paris prompted me to reread it because I had found Banks' description of the Memorial of the Deportation to be particularly haunting. This description and some of the other contrasts between Earth and the Culture in the title story are probably the best things about this book, although some of the other stories are good too; Banks writes pretty sharp satire. I would enthusiastically recommend this book to fans of Banks' Culture novels, but new readers would do better to read one of his other books first.