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Title: Least impressive Banks' book I've read so far...
Review: While Ian Banks is one of the most interesting writers I've come across in the last few years, unfortunately "A Song of Stone" is one of the least engaging novels I've ever finished. Muted, yet overwrought, this tale of dissolution is less shocking than turgid. The extended and tedious stretches of "purple prose" in this disappointing book, which were apparently consciously intended to embody the self-absorbed and effete mental state of the protagonist and narrator, did little but lose my flagging interest repeatedly. Coyly lurid, and basically quite unsatisfying, this dim variation on an apocalyptic, Road Warrior-ish theme goes nowhere and then dies...Read anything else by Banks before or instead of "A Song of Stone". Though I do rather enthusiastically recommend Banks as an author, I can't in good conscience give thumbs up to this book.
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