electronic resource, 527 pages
English language
Published Dec. 1, 2009 by Orbit.
The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.
Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.
This was a reread for me and having read all the other books I feel like I got a lot more out of it this time around.
Started reading this very cautiously because everyone says that this is not a representative book of the Culture setting and also not too good, but I did find it enjoyable. A bit sluggish at times, and sometimes it felt like a series of short stories instead of a cohesive novel, but I did like it. I am yet to start reading the player of games, and maybe I change my opinion about this one, but I was fairly entertained throughout the book.
3 stars for worldbuilding in the first half 1 star for generic and cliche characters (especially female characters)
also (south park voice) "this is what tech accelerationists actually believe"
