The Player of Games is sort of Banks-lite. If you didn't like that then you are not going to get into his other stuff. Personally I like his novel but I can und

The Player of Games is sort of Banks-lite. If you didn't like that then you are not going to get into his other stuff. Personally I like his novel but I can understand why others don't - he has a certain style and way of constructing plots that either grabs you of leaves you bored. There are certainly many books that I struggled through and wished I didn't, but there are others that I thought I was going to hate long past the 50 page mark that brought me around in the end. But 50 pages is enough to know that a book is _terrible_.