For me what didn't work is the psychology of the book. I'm a big fan of Iain Banks, and I've read Use of Weapons twice, and both times it left me unsatisfied. I

For me what didn't work is the psychology of the book. I'm a big fan of Iain Banks, and I've read Use of Weapons twice, and both times it left me unsatisfied. I'm always surprised when someone says it's their favourite Culture book. Spoilers ahead: The character of Eletiomel was so thinly drawn that when the conflict with Zakalwe occurs, it's really not clear what his motivations are aside from helping win a revolutionary war. And he commits an evil, barbaric act completely out of the blue, suggesting he's a calculating psychopath willing to murder an innocent person (his own lover, no less) in an apparently very elaborate, premeditated way which also happens "off-screen". And then we are supposed to buy the idea that he was so traumatised by his own actions (not actually a psychopath, then) that he adopted a new identity and spent the rest of his life mentally suppressing his past and also somehow atoning for it? I'm not buying any of it.