Nomad Scry

I like the ideas and there's nothing wrong with the writing, which is on part with the prior books, but there are too many characters and too many of them are Culture ships. Perhaps it's just a factor of the audiobook medium but the communications between Minds were opaque and confusing.

I was really enjoying the world, characters, story... And then there were those entirely out of character choices at the very end.

I'm perfectly fine with the most absurd story - as long as it is internally consistent. This ending breaks that.

I'm not sure why, exactly, but this is my favorite of the Culture. Maybe it's the challenging structure or the unfolding secrets or just characters themselves.