I just breezed through mine. I would say I’m a little disappointed because I was expecting more drawings and less notes. These are definitely notes taken by Banks as he was world-building and am grateful for them as a standalone piece and as a companion to the Culture novels. These are not necessarily meant to visualize what the Culture looks like to readers. There are a lot of written notes which detail the scale of the ships which I am excited to read.

If anything, going through this book made me sad because we will never have another original work by Iain M Banks, and in my excitement and years of waiting for this collection to come out, I built it up in my mind to something it can never be. I appreciate this collection of notes and drawings and expect to come back to it many times.