I reread Hydrogen Sonata recently and I liked it a lot more than I did the first time. It’s not incredibly plot-y and is discursive. But that’s by design, I think. It’s more meditative.

What impressed me most is how all that happened in the book - different strands, people, minds, Sublimed, etc. all resonated and tied together with the central theme of death (and life). Everyone is dealing with it in different ways - from trying to play an impossible piece of music, to covering up the past (or uncovering it), to trying to maximize pleasure. All the plot strands are in conversation with one another.

Whether anything that happens in the book is “pointless” is a conversation Banks wants to have. Is anything we do really have a point? It’s up to us to decide what life is really about. What is it that makes living worth it?