I've read through pretty much all of Hamilton's books, as well as the mainline Expanse books. The number of times I've muttered "James fucking Holden" is order

I've read through pretty much all of Hamilton's books, as well as the mainline Expanse books. The number of times I've muttered "James fucking Holden" is orders of magnitude higher than the times I've been frustrated by Hamilton's verbosity. I was truly disgusted and disappointed to see the Expanse series jump decades into the future and it's still about James fucking Holden Say what you will about Hamilton, but he's got more than one character to beat up on. I found Banks to be much more tedious to read. He says the same things over and over and every story is the same as the last. Every problem has a deus ex machina solution. Every problem is also a deus ex, but that's kind of the point. The ending and epilogue to the Expanse was deeply unsatisfying. More deus ex, more protomolecule. Nothing truly resolved, nothing answered. My read is that Banks is an inexperienced author with more space to talk than things to say.