Loved this book -- it's just a great, fun, creative SF story, of the capture-the-flag variant, set in Banks' Culture universe. I recently finished Use of Weapons, also by Banks, and very highly recommended by friends -- but I didn't love it. I found it a little inaccessible -- that was at least partly intentional by the design of the book -- but since that was my first Culture novel, I kept wondering if there was some context that I was missing.

Anyhow, this is a great science fiction novel -- some clever adventures that seem familiar from other space opera style books, but always with inventive twists. Highly recommended.