Yes it carries on directly from Neptune Crossing, in fact the first chapter or so was in the back of my edition of Neptune Crossing. It is very much the continuing, but very different, adventures of John Bandicut. I enjoyed it very much.
I'm now about half way through the Caroti book. There's a lot of very good insights into Banks' design and creation of a plausible utopia, as well as showing connections between the stories, both philosophical and literal, as in the link between the novella The State of the Art and Use of Weapons. My one big complaint is that it always seems to me that literary critics have probably failed as authors because they can't be read without a dictionary by your elbow! But get past that and there are many interesting insights and lots of fascinating links between the M and non-M Banks writings. (Thank goodness for ebook instant dictionary lookups!)
I'm just hoping Notes and Drawings does eventually make publication!
