Having jumped around the Culture series in a haphazard manner, I had been gradually coming to the conclusion that Iain M. Banks got better as he went on later into his career, generally. As it turns out, Use of Weapons violates that pattern. It's easily the worst book in the series, giving a painfully archaic depiction of trauma and dwelling on it for far too long as the centerpiece of the story. The only redeeming factor are one or two scenes which are admittedly neat from the aesthetic point of view, but that's just it. Definitely choose to read something else in the series over this one- again, these books don't need to be read in their order of release.