The problem with sci fi is that there is a balance needs to be struck between big idea and human interest. So far as I am concerned Arthur C Clarke never found it, albeit his ideas were admittedly huge. Transition isn't officially sci fi, in that Banks hasn't used his middle initial, his usual sci fi signature. Perhaps he considered it more of a dystopian novel. If so it is a multiverse dystopia. His polished narrative skills just about got me through the 450 pages, and there were many passages of great interest, but there was no human interest, absolutely none, and that was a huge disappointment.
The crux of the matter is there are too many central characters spread across too many parallel Earths, none of them emotionally engaged with any other. None have any engaging human traits and all are, to a greater or lesser extent, servants of the all-powerful Concern - the ubiquitous future-Nazis of far too many similar works. Their means of travel - the titular transition - is trite, a device for getting them out of any peril at the speed of thought. The consequences of the device are blithely ignored by Banks whereas for me that would have been the key to human interest - what does the non-transitioner make of the fact that their loved one's body has evidently been taken over by someone from a parallel world?
I can't deny Banks' narrative gifts but Transition has put me off any of his overt sci fi and I shall carefully check the nature of any of his straight novels before taking the plunge again.
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