Iain M. Bank's The Algebraist was nominated for science fiction's highest award in 2005 and one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Peter F. Hamilton, the creator of the Night's Dawn space opera, has cited the fellow British writer as an influence and inspiration. So I greatly looked forward to reading Banks' latest science fiction work, especially considering the title has something to do with mathematics, my regular day job. Banks is an unusual author in that he is well-known (and commercially successful) in both "genre fiction" as well as general fiction.Reviews on the web of The Algebraist are not uniformly glowing, although almost all refer to its ambitious nature and sharp wit.
For one thing, the book is 434 hardcover pages, not quite Hamiltonian-length but still quite an imposing size for a bit of a relaxing read. Frankly, I'm surprised I finished it, at all. It's simply not worth the amount of time it takes to read.
My fourth grade teacher once told me a long time ago that if I felt that I was about to give up on a book to skip 50 pages and keep on reading. I tried this strategy with The Algebraist and it did allow me to finish it, but not enjoyably.
GRADE: B.
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