499 pages
English language
Published Dec. 3, 1998 by Bantam Books.
Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared.
Now it is back.
Solid space opera, but construction (how Banks creates suspense and mystery) and message ("more humility, less competition") are a little in-the-face ("man merkt die Absicht und ist verstimmt"). Good: how Banks deals with identity, memory and guilt.
I know it's not fair to the book itself, but I struggled to finish this one because the narrator's voice did not agree with my ears. It's quite interesting overall, a bit complex but I think necessarily so given the topic.
