The Algebraist
- 500
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Algebraist” is a big, exuberant space opera whose chief pleasure is its world, above all the eccentric society inside a gas giant. Some readers praise the invention and the story. The flood of names for planets, empires and species is hard for some to keep straight, and others feel the central mystery resolves too obviously to satisfy after five hundred pages. It stands apart from Iain Banks’s Culture novels.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Algebraist is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, published in print in 2004. It was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2005.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 188 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 56% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.5 | 22 | 12% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 166 | 88% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Algebraist?
It has 500 pages — longer than 65% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 7.9, the closest to this book.
