Back in July I reported that I was then reading a novel called 'Matter' by Ian Banks. At that point I had only read the first few chapters - and was quite enjoying it. I said that I would reserve judgement until after I had finished it. Well, I did finish it ... and, oh dear! After those first few chapters the whole thing seemed to get bogged down and rather went on and on and on about nothing very interesting. Then it finished in a rush, and the ending didn't seem to have very much to do with what had gone before (a monstrous entity, which had hardly been mentioned in previous chapters, put in an appearance and devoured many of the leading protagonists - very silly!!).

I'm increasingly getting the impression that many contemporary, popular authors can't plot for toffee! They have a striking and ambitious idea for a book and they seem to think that it will plot itself. Then, because they haven't worked out the plot in sufficient detail, they get bogged down in the middle part of the book and finally have it rush the ending. Needless to say they rarely seem to be able to fulfil their ambitions. Bring back rigorous plotting!!