This is a bit more like it. A man is in an unknown room with no memory and this is about the people who visit him and how he tries to figure out what is going on. Very self referential, characters turning up from previous books etc. Kind of clever clever but entertaining none the less. Not a good starting place if you wanted to start reading Paul Auster.
This is classic Iain Banks. The basic premise is that there are many many universes deriving from the same start point but where different things occur in different places. Some people are able to transition from one universe to another and this story is about the fights they have with one another. This could easily be an Iain M Banks book and counter acts the impression that his recent mainstream books have been just too mainstream. I really liked this book not quite a Whit or a Use Of Weapons but definitely not a Steep Approach to Garbadale either. Also lots of really imaginative ways to torture, kill or have sex with people. For this reason bizarre unsolved crimes should probably be blamed on Iain B.
One of the reasons I so enjoy Paul Auster is that his style is so readable. This element is present and correct. However the twists and wild coincidences that drive the best Auster novels are not really here. There seem to be too many points of view and no chance to really get under anybodies skin. The result is a very readable entertaining enough story that seems to end up not really saying anything.
