Cheers for the link pix. I've actually got that, plus all the other Culture novels read by Peter Kenny. What I haven't got is an audio-book of Excession. There is one knocking about on the pirate trails but it's not read by Kenny and the narration does make it very hard work so I gave up on it.
I finally decided to order the printed copy from the local library. Have to say that Excession really is a cracker, I'm nearly finished now, about 100 pages to go out of 450 so it'll be done tomorrow
I've come to realise something about Banks' work through reading Excession rather than listening to an audio-book. Maybe it's because there is so much AI, Mind and ship content or maybe just the actual act of reading, but I had this niggle with some of his stuff that there was too much detail and things would slow down occasionally. With Excession it is mentioned a couple of times about the huge difference in time between Minds and humans making decisions or having thoughts - but it seems to me that it is written that way as well, speeds up in the Minds parts and slows down in the indiginant peoples parts... I dunno
Well done on finishing Surface Detail, that is a hefty piece of work, maybe slightly too much to cut down into a 2hr movie. Like I said, I love the idea of the ships and Minds that run the Culture, some of the ship names are brilliant although I wouldn't mind another in the series devoted to Special Circumstances