Banks forgets what to do with his characters half way through writing his books.
Firstly, I love the world building. Banks does a great job of communicating scale, technology and the stakes of galactic, thousands years old civilisations.
I don't believe that every narrative has to be tied up unambiguously, in fact, Banks does this very well occasionally _but_ having just finished _Look to Windward_, I'm getting the distinct impression that Banks forgot what characters are even for. So many named characters appear only to die or disappear or fizzle out having served no purpose nor relate to the themes of the overarching story.
This was most apparent in _Excession_ which appears to have a cult like following because I guess the concept of the story is cool but the execution is excruciating.
It's strange because _Player of Games_ and _Use of Weapons_ showed that he can write compelling characters that drive the story. There is a journey they go through that changes the character or us as the reader.
At this point, I'm on the fence about reading the remaining books.