Finally got the Algebraist done with bout 3 weeks ago. Bloody hell, what a slog... a bit of a disappointment overall, my first real delve into sci fi and while it;s all very well imagined and whatever else... there's not a whole lot to like about it. 500 odd pages of...well... not a lot? Characters aren't terrible likeable, the description of things just didn't seem to 'fit' with what my mind said they would be which was something that started to bug me after a while. The main one of these being the fact that the main character spends almost the entirety of the book in a 'gascraft' a little arrow shaped ship he uses to spend time to with an alien species in the universes gas giants. Except I just couldn't get past the idea of a little ship interacting with these creatures. It just didn't seem to fit.
Add in the fact that the first 300 pages of the book feature sod all happening effectively and it just brings the whole thing down. Banks is still scene setting 200 pages in. The last 200 or so pages were better, we get some action but it's still hard to genuinely care about any of it.
In the meantime however I investigated Neil Gaimans American Gods for the second time. Brilliant smart book. The premise is just so simple but great. What happened to the old gods? Odin, the Egyptian idols, the little myths and legends of the worlds cultures? They went to America, carried in the stories of immigrants to the New World and finding themselves having to do things a bit different in the face of the new gods, of technology and other features of modern life. It's a weird book, it's rambling in parts but has so many great ideas in it. It also features the Gaiman staples, explicit in parts and gruesome in others, but it's genuinely like nothing else I've read. Throughly recommend it for people interested in a bit of fantasy writing that has something slightly new.
I'm yet to find a copy of House of Leaves, sadly. Be interested to know if anyone on here had read it and their thoughts since I've heard it becomes a bit of chore in parts but is brilliant if it grabs you. Also seems to be more popular in America so perhaps Stateside Villans could inform?