There is something about his prose that I find quite brutal: perhaps it's the way he's exceptionally sparing in his descriptions. Sometimes this works marvellously in his favour. In the really short story, Odd Attachment, a love-sick life-form counts its luck during an alien invasion. It's touching, and hilarious, and very ironic, and it would just flat out not work if there were adjectives.
On the other hand, The State Of The Art, the novella that gives this collection it's name, was fairly tedious: Culture life-forms visit Earth and Banks just seems to make them reiterate all those tired cultural tropes that travellers have: the French are rude, India is dirty.
Banks worships his Culture. You can tell in the bland personalities he gives them, the vagueness that is brought to the details of their lifestyles. It's almost as if his idea of a perfect culture would crumble on closer inspection; so he doesn't.
Instead the characters discuss abstract concepts (social politics, goodshort stories and bad) in a remarkably tedious, Ayn Rand-way.
Boring is the word I'd use to describe this novella.
Banks' strength is in his short stories.
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