I finished A Song of Stone last night. Frank was right, this book is to be avoided – not because it isn’t well-written, but because the plot progression is just so damned depressing. The book starts off relatively upbeat where we find the narrator, his lover and their servants in the process of fleeing their castle because of a civil war. Yes, I said upbeat because, in retrospect, this is the happiest moment in the entire book. It is as if Banks decided to drop his characters in an already depressing scenario, then asked himself “How could I make their lives worse?” and wrote whatever immediately came to mind. Then again, war is never positive, and this book successfully drives that point home. As there are no victors in war, so there are no winners in this tragedy.

I have yet to write a review for Everyone in Silico, which I finished last week. I hope to get on that in a day or so, but I’m too lazy to write something decent at this point.