Land of the headless Book

I've read a couple of Adam Roberts' books now, and skimmed a couple of others, to see if I was interested in buying them. The weird thing is how similar all his narrators sound -- there's something almost like reading a translation about it, too, something stiff and not quite natural. It suits the characters, separately, but put together, I'm wondering a little if Adam Roberts can do any other tone.

Anyway, the ideas behind his novels are usually fascinating: I can't quite put my finger on exactly why this was so interesting, but -- the society he describes, the scenario he then leads his main character into, so that it asks all sorts of questions about guilt and love and lies and how we treat people we see as less than ourselves... There's a lot going on.

I can't say I had much emotional involvement, given that the main character is not necessarily a reliable narrator, so the part of it that was a love story didn't get through to me except intellectually, to ponder the dilemmas at work. More of a brain workout than one for the heart, but enjoyable for that.