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Walking on Glass (Paperback)

by Iain Banks (Author) "He walked through the white corridors, past the notice-boards with their offers of small rooms and old cars, past the coffee bar where people sat..." (more)
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Walking on Glass + The Bridge + The Wasp Factory
Price For All Three: £17.97

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  • The Bridge by Iain Banks

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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Abacus; New edition edition (1 April 1992)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0349101787
  • ISBN-13: 978-0349101781
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 18,643 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #17 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Banks, Iain

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Product Description

Review
'Inexorably powerful . sinister manipulations and magnetic ambiguities' - Observer 'The author's powerful imagination is displayed here every bit as vividly as in his debut' - Financial Times 'Establishes beyond doubt that Iain Banks is a novelist of remarkable talents' Daily Telegraph

Financial Times
'The author's powerful imagination is displayed here every bit as vividly as in his debut' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
He walked through the white corridors, past the notice-boards with their offers of small rooms and old cars, past the coffee bar where people sat at tables, past a hole in the white floor where an old chair stood sentry over an opened conduit in which a torch shone and a man crawled, and as he left he looked at his watch: TU 28 pm 3:33 Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

25 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Intrigues, yet tries too hard., 29 Nov 2001
By A Customer
As I am not very keen on the Sci-Fi element of Iain Banks' writing, i suppose it is fair to say that this novel would obviously not appeal instantly to me. After the controversial story of his debut novel, 'The Wasp Factory', Banks follows with this, a strange Fiction/ Sci-fi hybrid story, which is a genuinely intriguing read. Banks merges the three plots together expertly and cleverly creates three sub plots that all suck in the reader and keep them in suspense.

However, the book is a little too abstract for my tastes, and the final controversy of Graham's story just seems to be a feeble attempt to recreate the dramatic ending of 'The wasp factory'. It is too hard to see how the plots all directly relate to each other, even with several rereads of the book. This book is an interesting purchase, and a must for any Banks fan, but he has written many better novels than this.

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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Bewildering but beguiling, 29 Aug 2006
By Cheeky Monkey (NW England) - See all my reviews
In truth this isn't so much a novel, but a trio of short stories that kind of come together at the end and some of the stories are more appealing and easier to digest than others. In truth, the story of the game players in the glass prison left me bewildered at times, but I kept chugging along thanks to the humour and intrigue. The other stories were easier going but maybe not as engaging.

I finished this book feeling a bit let down but impressed nonetheless by the quality of the writing. I'd say it possibly the most intellectual Iain Banks book I've read so far, but that doesn't make it the best. Worth a read, but not the best starting point for people new to Iain Banks as I suspect it would put many off from reading his other (and better, in my opinion) books. I think it would have to be a very generous person to give this book anything more than three stars.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars ...but you might enjoy it more, 29 Aug 2003
By Tom Douglas "Tom" (Oxford, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This is a novel based on the simple notion that all is not what it seems.

We have three separate stories, which we cycle through, so we have the first part of each story in turn, then the second part of each, and so on.

We make assumptions, we make presumptions and we draw early conclusions about the characters and the plot. Mostly because it is in our nature to do so, but also because Banks deliberately encourages us, steering us towards our undoing.

As a result the book is something of a game between author and reader. On a purely intellenctual level I would rate this 4 stars, but ultimately the book has to stand up as a good read, and on that basis its drops down to 3 stars.

It is certainly well written - clever and witty. But it suffers from its format. With 3 short stories there is no room to develop the cast, so we end up with a collection of cartoon characters. Devices rather than individuals.

Some books leave you wanting more. This left me amused but with no real sense of enrichment. But as I said at the beginning, you might enjoy it more.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing failure
This appears to be a "love it or hate it" book...

"Walking on Glass" is a strange novel, its narrative broken into three strands. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Peter Lee

5.0 out of 5 stars Walking on Glass
Walking on Glass is as underrated as it is brilliant. Iain Bank's enigmatic novel of artifice and the inherent failings of humanity has often left readers bemused and frustrated... Read more
Published on 6 May 2007 by Dave Jeffery

3.0 out of 5 stars What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
I decided to take the "morning-after-the-night-before" approach with this review, generally because I thought, having slept on it, I would gain some clarity on this book. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2007 by Deanne Dixon

5.0 out of 5 stars Three in one.
Walking On Glass consists of 3 seemingly distinct storylines, whose characters never actually meet, but whose tales seem curiously linked. Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2005 by dogbarkssome

5.0 out of 5 stars Another of Banks' Inspirational and involved novels.
What is our judgement reality? Banks creates three, twisted through a matrix of connections that seem to simaltaeously disprove one another. Read more
Published on 13 Jul 2003

2.0 out of 5 stars is this really a novel?
Many reviewers seem to like this for its obscurity - that precisely what I disliked.

As others have stated this book has three parallel stories told in alternating chapters,... Read more

Published on 1 April 2003 by Lendrick

1.0 out of 5 stars Tracking the Hidden Meaning... Or Rather Not
I've got a serious problem with Iain Banks - each book of his I read is worse than the previous one. This begins to discourage me, to be honest. Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2003 by B. Paszylk

5.0 out of 5 stars Of human weakness; our fleshy souls.
This is a grabbing book for a number of reasons. Three stories, linked more by philosophy, and by the degree to which they represent the capacity for self deception, rather than... Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2003 by Daniel Dalton

2.0 out of 5 stars What is the Point of it
I've read a lot of the Ian Banks novels, most of witch are the kind of story's you can't put down, but I had trouble keeping an interest in this one. Read more
Published on 26 Sep 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Ambiguities that will make you paranoid!
This is my favourite book from Ian Banks and it shows just how imaginative he can be when given a premise that allows him to discard all standard procedure when writing. Read more
Published on 3 April 2002

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