It's hard to say if I'm getting more into the Culture universe and thus forgiving Banks his imperfections or if the books get better. Nevertheless, this was a very enjoyable piece of science-fiction action adventure. In a lot of other of Banks' books I find the switching point of view annoying and find myself reading some characters quickly to get back to what I consider the main, and more interesting plot line. In Surface Detail I found myself interested in every character's storyline. There's not really much more to say without spoiling the story, and this is a very story-driven book.

Unlike a lot of other Culture novels this one contains multiple references to rape. It wasn't particularly graphic and made sense as a means of advancing the plot, so I didn't object to it as a story point. However, it does merit a warning for folks who don't wish to read that kind of thing.

Some quotes I particularly liked:

"All you ever were was a little bit of the universe, thinking to itself. Very specific; this bit, here, right now. All the rest was fantasy. Nothing was ever identical to anything else because it didn’t share the same spacial coordinates; nothing could be identical to anything else because you couldn’t share the property of uniqueness."

"Normal Culture ships either went for maximum efficiency or the always popular let’s-see-what-we-can-squeeze-out-of-these-babies approach."

“Though it has to be said that those inclined to the fuck-up theory of history maintain that the Disk has no such planned purpose and is essentially the result of something between a minor Monopathic Hegemonising Event and an instance of colossal military over-ordering.”