Slashdot Mirror
Look to Windward
I can't go into any great detail about Iain M. Banks' latest novel of the highly-advanced Culture civilization without giving away too much of the plot. The book opens as the light of two suns which were induced to explode in a war 800 years past -- the Idiran wars, the gigadeathcrimes mentioned in previous Culture books -- is about to fall upon the scene. The stage is set.
Unlike some of his other Culture books, this is not an action novel. While there is some action, that isn't the focus of the novel. Rather than rushing ahead, this book takes a leisurely pace through an exploration of war. Where Use of Weapons didn't give you time to think, Look to Windward gives you nearly infinite time - the rest of your life, in fact - to consider the consequences of war.
Ponder, if you will, a shell of light 1600 light-years in diameter. Outside of that shell, a war is still going on -- two planetary systems are still full of life. Inside that shell, the war is over and nothing remains of those systems but two stars gone nova. If this image moves you, so will the book.
Banks is intent upon sculpting a symphony, a tribute to war veterans of all times and places. Threads wax and wane, appear and disappear. Lifelines are cut short. Heroes aren't. Soldiers do their duty. As with most of his science fiction works, things are not as they seem, and you won't figure out just how things are put together until the final bars are being played. It is easy to imagine this book played aloud.
I still might start new Banks readers on Use of Weapons or Player of Games. But this would be an excellent second novel for them. Well, I take that back. Consider Phlebas should be read before Look to Windward.
(As an aside, does anyone else remember "All The Way Back", a short story by Michael Shaara?)
the gigadeathcrimes? Hmmm, gigadeath. Sounds like a bad band name. Like megadeth. Gigadeth...
oh well, i'm bored...
How is it that i spend all day on the net, but don't have time to "read"
I have a love-hate relationship with his works. He is a master storyteller, and his worlds are really neat -- well-drawn, fascinating places -- but he is SOOO mean to his characters! He really wrenches the reader around some, too. Years after the fact, I am STILL wondering about the protagonist of Use of Weapons. Nonetheless, I'll snatch the new book up as soon as it arrives in the US.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Try before you buy and read the prologue online.
-- Anne Marie
Hrm, I didn't even realize it was a book review for a sec. Maybe a 'Book Review: " would be appropiate? Maybe a book review section?
Putting it under news just didn't feel right.
Offtopic blah blah.. at least I'm not trolling or flaming. Constructive critism!
Ponder, if you will, a shell of light 1600 light-years in diameter. Outside of that shell, a war is still going on -- two planetary systems are still full of life. Inside that shell, the war is over and nothing remains of those systems but two stars gone nova. If this image moves you, so will the book.
Great Moogly Googly! They wrote a book about the US election and the aftermath.
Between this book and /Consider Phlebas/ Mr. Banks shows himself to Love T.S. Eliot's /The Waste Land/ and particularly:
Part 4 - Death by Water
Phelbas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering whirpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
I also ordered and read _Look to Windward_ from the UK, and I'm having a hard time believing that this guy and I read the same book. _Look to Windward_ is disjointed, shallow, lacking in characterization, and definitely lacking in the complexity that was present in _Use of Weapons_ and _Consider Phlebas_. It's two hundred pages of a single character doing absolutely nothing besides moping around, followed by two pages of actual story ... and if we want that, Dave Sim did it brilliantly in _Melmoth_. There's material about life in the Culture that was done better in _Player of Games_, material about Minds that was done better in _Excession_, material about Special Circumstances's screwups that was done better in _Use of Weapons_ ... this is, basically, a pretty lousy book all by itself, and once you compare what qualities it *does* have with other books by Banks, it suffers - badly - in the comparison. If you have to have all Banks's work ... wait for paperback. Possibly even wait for it to appear in paperback in used bookstores.
Anyway, I love Banks stuff. He is my favourite SF writer. He is not really a 'hard' SF writer, I think he concentrates on the society rather than the technology - hence 'the Culture', and this is what makes him so interesting. Indeed one of the attributes of the Culture is that technology no longer advances from the perspective of the average citizen. Once you are capable of manufacturing anything, anywhere, and effectively for free what more can you do that will affect the average human?
Also, his work is very refreshing when compared to that of most other SF writers, as it regards communism as inevitable, something I would agree with, in the long term. The only other writer I can think of writes about this is Ken MacLeod, his fellow Scot. I think Americans especially, who dominate the field, tend to write about future Megacorporations and the like. Is this because they really think this or because they are scared of losing sales - I mean Americans (rightly) have been totally opposed to communism for decades, so possibly their SF writers are scared of being branded commies?
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
...you might want to check out www.phlebas.com which is all about Ian M Banks' books. :) )
By the way, I love his books too. He is "mean" to his characters, but I think that adds something, rather than takes anything away. Banks usually has much to say, between the lines, as well. Inversions is the most obvious example, but look at the other books too. (But don't look too hard and forget to enjoy
Note: I am not affiliated in any way with that website..Just thought I'd pass it on.
...Corruption in the goat herd Flesh crumbles in the real world.
Iain Banks is a sick writer. I cannot think of any other author so inventively grim. The Wasp Factory and Song of Stone are just incredibly depressing.
Iain M. Banks is a sick writer. He has created one of the great future civilisations (Galactic Empire? pulease!), which he describes as "a fucking utopia", and yet within it, he manages to set stories every bit as fucked up as the Wasp Factory and Song of Stone.
I love his writing, but I try and make a point of never reading two of his novels back to back, lest I be tempted to orphan my children.
--
--
E_NOSIG
[Vague spoiler follows. You've been warned.]
This thing that I found really chilling about the book was (without giving too much away) that it seemed to be a prologue for a larger conflict to come. banks goes out of his way (in other books, too) that the Culture needs someone to kick its ass. It appears that Banks has decided just who is going to do that, even if he hasn't let us in on it yet.
Look to Windward, indeed.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Consider how different Banks' fictional world is. He was, AFAIK, the first SF writer to disassociate his future civilisation from the planetary-centred Civs. that preceded him. The Culture exists entirely in space, it has no central authority, no real territorial claims. Also, human beings are reduced to the status of fleas on a dog - they are not necessary. And the concept of this civilisation being so jaded and purposeless, now that it has solved all of it's physical problems, that it needs to make it it's mission to 'help' lesser civilsations is fantastic. This seems to me to be a reference to the USA & the West today - we are in a similar situation ;) . In fact, that book has so many complexities I reread it even now, and never fail to notice something new.
But by far his greatest creation, IMO, are the Minds themselves. Most other Computer Intelligences in SF come across as humans with funny voices, but the Minds are a truly brilliant creation. It's very difficult to write of such beings convincingly, and make the reader believe they transcend humanity, but Banks pulls it off.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
I haven't read any of Banks's stuff yet (in fact this is the first time I've heard of him), but his books sound very much like C.J.Cherryh's Cyteen. The book is extremely involved and extremely hopeless. The feeling of fatalism permeates the entire book - nothing can stand against the main "protagonist", whom by the end of the book I was ready to ponud into smithereens with my bare hands. Cyteen has that "wheels within wheels, plans within plans" Dune feeling, combined with the totalitarian state of 1984, and a serious discussion of the ethics of cloning, politics and mind control. A great book.
>|<*:=
"Everyone dies pointlessly and then the story just stops."
If the purpose of art is to hold up a mirror to life, then this succeeds admirably I think.
Elgon
As with a number of British-published books (most notably Pratchett's Discworld series), they're more often than not also available in Canada. One place that sells online is Chapters. They do have Look To Windward, although they say it'll take 3 to 5 weeks to get it to you.
http://www.genmars.com/adrian/books/b ank s/
I really like the exchanges between the Minds in Excession, all that cynicism and scheming is remarkably similar to Trolltalk at times ;)
It seems to me that the only thing that keeps the Culture going is it's own belief in it's moral superiority. So if this belief were shattered, by some demonstration, then the Culture would disintigrate. The only thing that could destroy the Culture then, is the Culture itself, because the immoral act would have to be by the Culture.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
If I were you, I'd save my money for the next Asimov book.
Got some news for ya, son -- Isaac's dead!
deus does not exist but if he does
Hrmmm. I'm a big Banks fan and due to that just read Ken McLeod's "The Star Fraction". I was extremely disappointed. Perhaps his other books are better? TSF seemed tedious, a lot of confusing fillers crammed together with unbelievable political philosophies/situations. Would you say his other stuff is better or more of the same? (possibly I just don't like his style)
Conscider Phelebas, not Player of Games, but that's only 'cause you kinda asked.
I was going to bring up those books by -- now I forget -- Michael Moorecock or Brian Aldiss. Something about Riders of the Apocalypse? I read them only once, a long time ago, and I kept getting confused as to chronology. People kept on popping in and out of the story. Ring any bells?
Nope. The Culture is Socialist, materialist and anarchist. If you don't believe me , maybe you'll believe Iain.