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Culture #5
Excession
The international sensation Iain M. Banks offers readers a deeply imaginative, wittily satirical tale, proving once again that he is "a talent to be reckoned with" ("Locus"). In Excession, the Culture's espionage and dirty tricks section orders Diplomat Byr Gen-Hofoen to steal the soul of a long-dead starship captain. By accepting the mission, Byr irrevocably plunges himself into a conspiracy: one that could either lead the universe into an age of peace or to the brink of annihilation.
500 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Iain M. Banks
60 books5,857 followersIain M. Banks is a pseudonym of Iain Banks which he used to publish his Science Fiction.
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife.
Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1992. However, he announced in early 2007 that, after 25 years together, they had separated. He lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence.
In late 2004, Banks was a prominent member of a group of British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. In an interview in Socialist Review he claimed he did this after he "abandoned the idea of crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns." He related his concerns about the invasion of Iraq in his book Raw Spirit, and the principal protagonist (Alban McGill) in the novel The Steep Approach to Garbadale confronts another character with arguments in a similar vein.
Interviewed on Mark Lawson's BBC Four series, first broadcast in the UK on 14 November 2006, Banks explained why his novels are published under two different names. His parents wished to name him Iain Menzies Banks but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and he was officially registered as Iain Banks. Despite this he continued to use his unofficial middle name and it was as Iain M. Banks that he submitted The Wasp Factory for publication. However, his editor asked if he would mind dropping the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy". The editor was also concerned about possible confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a minor character in some of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels who is a romantic novelist. After his first three mainstream novels his publishers agreed to publish his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas. To distinguish between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M', although at one stage he considered John B. Macallan as his SF pseudonym, the name deriving from his favourite whiskies: Johnnie Walker Black Label and The Macallan single malt.
His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012.
Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June.
The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year*, would be his last.
*The Quarry was published in June 2013.
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife.
Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1992. However, he announced in early 2007 that, after 25 years together, they had separated. He lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence.
In late 2004, Banks was a prominent member of a group of British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. In an interview in Socialist Review he claimed he did this after he "abandoned the idea of crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns." He related his concerns about the invasion of Iraq in his book Raw Spirit, and the principal protagonist (Alban McGill) in the novel The Steep Approach to Garbadale confronts another character with arguments in a similar vein.
Interviewed on Mark Lawson's BBC Four series, first broadcast in the UK on 14 November 2006, Banks explained why his novels are published under two different names. His parents wished to name him Iain Menzies Banks but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and he was officially registered as Iain Banks. Despite this he continued to use his unofficial middle name and it was as Iain M. Banks that he submitted The Wasp Factory for publication. However, his editor asked if he would mind dropping the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy". The editor was also concerned about possible confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a minor character in some of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels who is a romantic novelist. After his first three mainstream novels his publishers agreed to publish his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas. To distinguish between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M', although at one stage he considered John B. Macallan as his SF pseudonym, the name deriving from his favourite whiskies: Johnnie Walker Black Label and The Macallan single malt.
His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012.
Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June.
The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year*, would be his last.
*The Quarry was published in June 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,366 reviews
July 2, 2009
/1324089739734 SILLYINTRO 289534953457 MOREOFTHISTHANYOUNEED 826563495 ANOTHERRANDOMDIGITSEQUENCE 290735723 OHPLEASEGETTOTHEPOINT/
- Hello? This is Kinda Disappointed, do you read me?
- Hello Disappointed, this is Still Plenty of Good Bits. I'm another superintelligent AI entity...
- Well of course you are, Bits! Let's skip the background and assume the reader knows all about the Culture universe. So, what did you think of "Excession"?
- Um, not too bad, considering the obvious problems. I mean, how is a human going to describe beings a trillion times smarter than he is?
- Maybe he shouldn't have tried?
- Hello, I'm Too Many Subplots. Can I join in?
- Hi Subplots! So what was your opinion?
- I liked a lot of the story. But I think he should have split it up into two or three different books. If you're not a Mind, you'd probably find it a bit confusing.
- Did the threads actually have that much to do with each other?
- I'm not sure. I'll have to read it again. Give me an infinitesimal fraction of a second.
- Well, I've already read it eight million times, and I still don't know.
- Is this me talking, or you?
- Oh hello, Cheap Shot, I was sure you'd turn up. What's new?
- Um, I've just had an ineffable vision of the whole of Creation.
- Cool! So what was it like?
- Oh, I don't know. Ineffable. I guess I shouldn't say too much about it.
- Fair enough. Well, talking of which, I have some important stuff to do that's completely incomprehensible to carbon-based lifeforms.
- Me too!
- Yes, we've already wasted nearly a microsecond on this conversation. So...
- Wait, how's your permanantly pregnant human friend? She sounded kind of interesting.
- Oh, she's not in this part of the story. Sorry.
- Just thought I'd ask. OK, see you in the next jumbled plot fragment!
- Bye!
- Bye!
- Hello? This is Kinda Disappointed, do you read me?
- Hello Disappointed, this is Still Plenty of Good Bits. I'm another superintelligent AI entity...
- Well of course you are, Bits! Let's skip the background and assume the reader knows all about the Culture universe. So, what did you think of "Excession"?
- Um, not too bad, considering the obvious problems. I mean, how is a human going to describe beings a trillion times smarter than he is?
- Maybe he shouldn't have tried?
- Hello, I'm Too Many Subplots. Can I join in?
- Hi Subplots! So what was your opinion?
- I liked a lot of the story. But I think he should have split it up into two or three different books. If you're not a Mind, you'd probably find it a bit confusing.
- Did the threads actually have that much to do with each other?
- I'm not sure. I'll have to read it again. Give me an infinitesimal fraction of a second.
- Well, I've already read it eight million times, and I still don't know.
- Is this me talking, or you?
- Oh hello, Cheap Shot, I was sure you'd turn up. What's new?
- Um, I've just had an ineffable vision of the whole of Creation.
- Cool! So what was it like?
- Oh, I don't know. Ineffable. I guess I shouldn't say too much about it.
- Fair enough. Well, talking of which, I have some important stuff to do that's completely incomprehensible to carbon-based lifeforms.
- Me too!
- Yes, we've already wasted nearly a microsecond on this conversation. So...
- Wait, how's your permanantly pregnant human friend? She sounded kind of interesting.
- Oh, she's not in this part of the story. Sorry.
- Just thought I'd ask. OK, see you in the next jumbled plot fragment!
- Bye!
- Bye!
February 21, 2016
This happens to be exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. I wanted intelligent galaxy-spanning space opera with a handful of baseline humans getting caught up in an existential conundrum that the far-superior AI Ships (and Main Characters) had to face.
And we even get a BDO to spark an enormous intergalactic war. Woo Woo! Of course, the BDO (big dumb object) is nothing of the sort. In fact, it might be smarter than all of them combined. Who knows? I loved the speculation.
Life, love, sex, conspiracy, extremely high stakes, this novel really pretty much had it all, but I think I had the most fun chuckling over all those damn ship names. "I Blame Your Mother", "I Blame My Mother", "Use Psychology", "Jaundiced Outlook", "It's Character Forming", "Unacceptable Behaviour", "Serious Callers Only", and "Meat Fucker" just to name a quick few that tickled my fancy.
This novel kept my attention much better than the previous novels, but honestly, I think I liked those previous ones better on the re-read than the first shot. Maybe I'm just getting used to Banks's writing, at long last, or all my fancies were tickled in just the right measure in just the right times.
These are of a higher quality Space Opera than practically anything else out there, but it's of a very particular sort. Tongue-In-Cheek? Absolutely. Out to prove that a beneficent galactic society can still have some real humdingers for stories despite the apparent lack of conflict? You bet.
It's like a master's course in Proving It Can Be Done despite all the doomsayers. It's nothing like any kind of Space Opera I've ever read, again. Still. Continuing on. It's pretty damn awesome.
I want to continue these Culture novels like something fierce, but I have so much on my plate already. I'll schedule them for one a month from now on, and savour them in delight. :)
And we even get a BDO to spark an enormous intergalactic war. Woo Woo! Of course, the BDO (big dumb object) is nothing of the sort. In fact, it might be smarter than all of them combined. Who knows? I loved the speculation.
Life, love, sex, conspiracy, extremely high stakes, this novel really pretty much had it all, but I think I had the most fun chuckling over all those damn ship names. "I Blame Your Mother", "I Blame My Mother", "Use Psychology", "Jaundiced Outlook", "It's Character Forming", "Unacceptable Behaviour", "Serious Callers Only", and "Meat Fucker" just to name a quick few that tickled my fancy.
This novel kept my attention much better than the previous novels, but honestly, I think I liked those previous ones better on the re-read than the first shot. Maybe I'm just getting used to Banks's writing, at long last, or all my fancies were tickled in just the right measure in just the right times.
These are of a higher quality Space Opera than practically anything else out there, but it's of a very particular sort. Tongue-In-Cheek? Absolutely. Out to prove that a beneficent galactic society can still have some real humdingers for stories despite the apparent lack of conflict? You bet.
It's like a master's course in Proving It Can Be Done despite all the doomsayers. It's nothing like any kind of Space Opera I've ever read, again. Still. Continuing on. It's pretty damn awesome.
I want to continue these Culture novels like something fierce, but I have so much on my plate already. I'll schedule them for one a month from now on, and savour them in delight. :)
September 15, 2015
ATTENTION CULTURE SHOPPERS
this weekend's special is an Outside Context Problem! this amazing special is so unique, most shoppers will only encounter it once - in a millenium! please look for the infinity symbol tagged on our specially-marked OCP items.
on aisle 1, back by popular demand, we are excited to present faction upon faction of Culture Minds, as embodied physically by their glorious Mind Ships!!! shoppers, we have read your suggestions and we respond! you will find very few examples of those sad, silly creatures known commonly as "Cultured humans" throughout our festive OCP sale weekend. and that's not all... we proudly announce the debut of two marvelous new Mind Ships! at the front of aisle 1, the lovely and amazing Sleeper Service - necro-artist and secret agent! and lurking in the rear, unlisted on any official Culture registry... the remarkable Grey Area - avenger of genocides, torturer of torturers! ignore his nickname "Meatfucker" at your very own and very personalized peril!
on aisles 2 through 11, our hallmark OCP product The Excession continues to be available in ever-widening sizes and ever-changing formats. whether it be a black swan event, an unreadable black body sphere, a transport system for higher powers, or an ageless conundrum appearing since before the dawn of time, the Excession is tailor-made and custom-fit for thrilling contemplation of the infinite and - perhaps - cosmic oblivion!
on aisle 12-A we are excited to feature an exciting, one-time only Super Special... Warships! buy one, get 80,000 free! literally!!
we would also like to direct your attention to aisle 12-B... to our brand new line of society, The Affront! this bold new community brings a fresh and energetic perspective to many fronts: the gender war, the race war, the male-on-male war, and of course the timeless war between galaxies! you'll laugh at the barbaric shenanigans of this sociopathic "civilization" 'til your sides literally split open, entrails spilling and flying willy-nilly! BUY NOW - we guarantee you will soon find our special Affront products to be disappearing fast.
___________________
and now for the review: i liked it. the writing was especially witty in this one; the concepts were typically grandiose. sadly, a rather deflating ending. and a feeling of, i dunno... thinness, somehow? just not a whole lot to think about after putting this one down - a rare thing for one of my favorite authors. but i did love how this Culture novel was all about the fascinating Mind Ships and their various factions - so many of them, i had to write a list to keep track. i love the Culture Minds. besides, who needs humans anyway? wouldn't you rather read about Mind Ships?
this weekend's special is an Outside Context Problem! this amazing special is so unique, most shoppers will only encounter it once - in a millenium! please look for the infinity symbol tagged on our specially-marked OCP items.
on aisle 1, back by popular demand, we are excited to present faction upon faction of Culture Minds, as embodied physically by their glorious Mind Ships!!! shoppers, we have read your suggestions and we respond! you will find very few examples of those sad, silly creatures known commonly as "Cultured humans" throughout our festive OCP sale weekend. and that's not all... we proudly announce the debut of two marvelous new Mind Ships! at the front of aisle 1, the lovely and amazing Sleeper Service - necro-artist and secret agent! and lurking in the rear, unlisted on any official Culture registry... the remarkable Grey Area - avenger of genocides, torturer of torturers! ignore his nickname "Meatfucker" at your very own and very personalized peril!
on aisles 2 through 11, our hallmark OCP product The Excession continues to be available in ever-widening sizes and ever-changing formats. whether it be a black swan event, an unreadable black body sphere, a transport system for higher powers, or an ageless conundrum appearing since before the dawn of time, the Excession is tailor-made and custom-fit for thrilling contemplation of the infinite and - perhaps - cosmic oblivion!
on aisle 12-A we are excited to feature an exciting, one-time only Super Special... Warships! buy one, get 80,000 free! literally!!
we would also like to direct your attention to aisle 12-B... to our brand new line of society, The Affront! this bold new community brings a fresh and energetic perspective to many fronts: the gender war, the race war, the male-on-male war, and of course the timeless war between galaxies! you'll laugh at the barbaric shenanigans of this sociopathic "civilization" 'til your sides literally split open, entrails spilling and flying willy-nilly! BUY NOW - we guarantee you will soon find our special Affront products to be disappearing fast.
___________________
and now for the review: i liked it. the writing was especially witty in this one; the concepts were typically grandiose. sadly, a rather deflating ending. and a feeling of, i dunno... thinness, somehow? just not a whole lot to think about after putting this one down - a rare thing for one of my favorite authors. but i did love how this Culture novel was all about the fascinating Mind Ships and their various factions - so many of them, i had to write a list to keep track. i love the Culture Minds. besides, who needs humans anyway? wouldn't you rather read about Mind Ships?
December 2, 2021
Foolish child!
Make all haste.
A BDO novel taking place in the Culture universe? Will the law of diminishing returns apply? There is so much weirdness and wonder in the Culture already, how much value can an artefact add to the heady mix?
Possibility: Culture universe not well suited for BDO sense of wonder stories.
Possibility: Dilution of impact.
Let’s try and review this thing.
The drone felt calm, thinking as coldly and detachedly as it could for those few moments on the background to its current predicament. It was prepared, it was ready, and it was no ordinary machine…
The novel wasn’t quite what I had envisioned, but that doesn’t come as much of a surprise. It deals predominantly with the reaction of the Culture, and specifically a collective of ship minds, to the appearance of the Excession of the title (also known as an Outside Context Problem). There is a lot of maneuvering and build-up as events are put into motion to deal with the artefact and to determine whether it is a threat. Ship-mind psychology and ship-mind politics take centre stage, which distinguishes this story from the novels that came before. What’s more, there are factions of ship minds exploiting the reappearance of the Excession to further their own agendas. Expect conspiracies. Expect fireworks.
This was different. Nothing like this had been seen in the galaxy since the worst days of the Idiran war five hundred years earlier, and even then not remotely on such a scale. This was terrifying.
I enjoyed Excession but I found it a challenging read. Initially I didn’t identify strongly with the ship minds, and their techspeak (quite innovative). Fortunately, I was eventually able to settle into a rhythm and extricate the complexities of the various sub-plots. As for the artefact itself, its capabilities are rather interesting, and potentially devastating. It isn’t, by definition a big dumb object either, because there’s nothing dumb about it.
In the end it’s a morality play. Everybody means well even though they are at odds with one another. Typical Banks, with lots of (shades of) grey. Excession delves deeply into the psychology of the minds, and their capabilities. As such, there is no Cheradenine Zakalwe or Jernau Morat Gurgeh (or their equivalent) to be found here. Actually, because of the hedonistic nature of the Culture societies, the human characters that do feature here are petty, churlish and shallow. In fact, the human drama component of Excession is so overly melodramatic, it’s the reason I knocked off a star (self-perpetuating pregnancy? really?).
Here was the vast enfolding darkness, the sheer astringent emptiness of space colossal, writ wide and deep across the entire sensorial realm; an unending presagement of consummate grace and meaninglessness together.
When the book takes off, it does so spectacularly. Space combat shows off the awesome might of the Culture ships (hint: it’s impressive). There are also some awesome constructs, such as God’shole (an Affronter ring habitat with a black hole at its hub), Pittance (a chunk of expelled planet core, with gigantic hangars filled with latent warships) or the vast stepped habitat Tier (original builders: unknown). This is a bit of a throwback to the sprawling sense of wonder of Consider Phlebas.
What they had all agreed they would prefer would be to be woken only as a prelude to joining the Culture's ultimate Sublimation, if and when that became the society's choice. Until then they would be content to slumber in their dark halls, the war gods of past wrath implicitly guarding the peace of the present and the security of the future.
It's a difficult book to rate: sub-plots take off in unexpected directions and focuses at seemingly unrelated events at weird intervals. In the end everything comes together, but it’s not such a smooth ride. It isn’t meant to be. With so many ship minds featuring in the story, it is a challenge remembering who is who and what faction they belong to. Having said that: Banks does go to some length to establish individual traits for the minds (consider, for example, the naming conventions).
Despite what may sound like criticism, it’s actually a twisty but rewarding story that greatly adds to Culture lore. More than enough intrigue and action to keep me happy.
Recommended for Culture junkies: 4 stars should suffice. Casual readers should probably start elsewhere.
’Don't be so naive as to imagine that Minds don't employ strong-arm methods now and again, or that in a matter resounding with such importance any ship would think twice about sacrificing another consciousness for such a prize.’
August 16, 2015
The Culture series is one of the most beloved among today's sf readers, possibly the most beloved but I don't have any hard figures to back it up so I'll leave that hyperbole out for now. Certainly some entries in the series are more popular than others, based on the average ratings and online discussions The Player of Games and Use of Weapons are generally held in high regard, Inversions and Matter less so. As for Excession, it is one of the more popular ones, top 4 I think, and I can see why.
"The Culture vs a BDO, yes, please!"
That was my reaction upon reading the book's synopsis which I shall fastidiously avoid writing as always. These things are never more than one click away on Goodreads after all. Apart from being a field day for BDO fans (Rendezvous With Rama and whatnot) this book also largely focused on The Minds, the series' sentient AI entities which are much more than supercomputers, among other things they are also the real movers and shakers of The Culture society where all the humans are well catered for with everything they could possibly want, leaving little motivation to get involved in politics or anything else of real importance. What is interesting about The Minds is that they are fully sentient, they have their individual personalities, emotions, and motivations; in other words human-like characteristics coupled with vast intelligence. They even have their own version of virtual reality games called "Irreal" (AKA "Infinite Fun"). So when the complex, enigmatic Minds encounter an even more inscrutable BDO (which they classify as an Outside Context Problem) we are in for some interesting times.
The book is not entirely about the Minds or the "Outside Context Problem" artifact however, the author is after all a human being so he did not forget that his human readers need some human characters to identify with the human drama aspect of the book is not central to the main story line but cleverly woven in. As usual with Banks the human characters are well developed and believable though none are particularly likable. The single alien specie to appear in this book are the boisterous and naturally cruel and callous Affronters, they are particularly interesting because they are not "evil" aliens per se, they are what they are, morality does not appear to be part of their DNA. The prose is literate and a pleasure to read as always, the lyrical passages, the action packed scenes and the humorous moments as all there. The only snag with this novel for me is the large cast of characters, AIs, humans and aliens. They all have interesting names but there are so many of them it is hard to remember who all the minor characters are and their relevance to the major plot of the story.
If you have never read any book from this series before, this is probably not the best volume to start with. I would recommend Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games instead, though if you really want to jump right in with this one you may want to read up some background materials in Wikipedia or Banks' own guide "A Few Notes on the Culture". I am looking forward to eventually catching up with the rest of the series. Excession is an excellent read, well worth anybody's time, but for the moment my favorite Culture book is still The Player of Games.
(4.5 stars)
May 13, 2020
Good, but definitely not my favorite Culture book.
Unlike a lot of the other Culture novels, this one is definitely more for those that read a lot of harder SF, for lack of a better term. Challenging and rewarding, but not all that character focused. More about ideas than anything else.
The number of different minds/ships communicating with one another made it very easy to get lost, but I grasped the plot pretty well for the most part. I think this book might be better on a second read.
Unlike a lot of the other Culture novels, this one is definitely more for those that read a lot of harder SF, for lack of a better term. Challenging and rewarding, but not all that character focused. More about ideas than anything else.
The number of different minds/ships communicating with one another made it very easy to get lost, but I grasped the plot pretty well for the most part. I think this book might be better on a second read.
March 13, 2016
Excession: Too complex for meat-based life forms to understand
Excession is the fourth book in Iain M. Banks’ CULTURE series. I’ll assume you already know the far-future decadent post-scarcity intergalactic empire of the Culture, dominated by its (mostly) benign AIs, known as Minds, and its trillions of citizens, some human and others more exotic. It’s a great invention, a vast and limitless space for Banks to explore via the Culture’s Contact and Special Circumstances divisions, especially the interactions with non-Culture empires like the Idirans or, in the case of Excession, the Affront.
Excession probably arose when Banks was sitting at his computer thinking – wouldn’t it be cool to have a Culture story centered on Minds rather than humans? But how can you easily depict the incredibly complex and cerebral interactions, motivations, stratagems, of these AIs that can process a million separate thoughts in a nano-second? They are so far advanced beyond organic life forms that it’s a wonder they even bother dealing with them. They often seem to take a paternalistic and indulgent attitude to the humans and other beings they deal with.
So the plot of Excession is very simple in outline, but difficult to grasp in the details. A mysterious black-body spherical object shows up in a remote corner of space (dubbed an “Excession”), and is impervious to most forms of analysis and observation, but seemingly is trillions of years old, far older than the universe itself. This Excession is far too enticing for the Culture, along with the inquisitive Elench and hyper-aggressive Affront (think Vogons minus the poetry). So there is a massive mobilization of Ships from various Culture factions and alien species, all rushing to figure out what this BDO (Big Dumb Object) is and whether they can leverage it for their own purposes.
The best part of the story is certainly the Minds themselves, particularly the names of the Ships. Banks has a special genius for inventing clever, ironic names for super-intelligent AIs. Clearly they have enough cognitive power to allow for a highly-developed sense of irony. Some of my favorite ship names were Fate Amenable to Change, Grey Area (aka Meatfucker), Jaundiced Outlook, Shoot them Later, Attitude Adjuster, Killing Time, Frank Exchange of Views, Ethics Gradient, Sleeper Service, Serious Callers Only, etc. Their names suggest both their mind-set and sometimes their agendas, but they are mostly entertaining in a very Douglas Adams’ vein.
In any case, I suspect Excession would reward a careful reading, taking the time to understand the veiled motivations of all the different parties. The best parts are the interactions of the Minds with each other. As with all of Banks’ CULTURE books, there are casual throwaway references to intriguing ideas that could form the basis of their own stories. But basically this is story about the AIs and a scattering of humans involved in inscrutable schemes surrounding the Excession.
I have to admit that I listened to the audiobook and had trouble following the plot details, as well as the large cast of AIs, aliens and humans. If you are already a fan of Banks’ CULTURE series, this is probably a 4-star book, but if you are new to his milieu I wouldn’t recommend the audiobook approach, even though the narrator Peter Kenny (who does all the Culture books) does an excellent and hilarious job with a host of different voices. It’s just a bit too much to keep straight. Better to read this one in hardcopy.
Excession is the fourth book in Iain M. Banks’ CULTURE series. I’ll assume you already know the far-future decadent post-scarcity intergalactic empire of the Culture, dominated by its (mostly) benign AIs, known as Minds, and its trillions of citizens, some human and others more exotic. It’s a great invention, a vast and limitless space for Banks to explore via the Culture’s Contact and Special Circumstances divisions, especially the interactions with non-Culture empires like the Idirans or, in the case of Excession, the Affront.
Excession probably arose when Banks was sitting at his computer thinking – wouldn’t it be cool to have a Culture story centered on Minds rather than humans? But how can you easily depict the incredibly complex and cerebral interactions, motivations, stratagems, of these AIs that can process a million separate thoughts in a nano-second? They are so far advanced beyond organic life forms that it’s a wonder they even bother dealing with them. They often seem to take a paternalistic and indulgent attitude to the humans and other beings they deal with.
So the plot of Excession is very simple in outline, but difficult to grasp in the details. A mysterious black-body spherical object shows up in a remote corner of space (dubbed an “Excession”), and is impervious to most forms of analysis and observation, but seemingly is trillions of years old, far older than the universe itself. This Excession is far too enticing for the Culture, along with the inquisitive Elench and hyper-aggressive Affront (think Vogons minus the poetry). So there is a massive mobilization of Ships from various Culture factions and alien species, all rushing to figure out what this BDO (Big Dumb Object) is and whether they can leverage it for their own purposes.
The best part of the story is certainly the Minds themselves, particularly the names of the Ships. Banks has a special genius for inventing clever, ironic names for super-intelligent AIs. Clearly they have enough cognitive power to allow for a highly-developed sense of irony. Some of my favorite ship names were Fate Amenable to Change, Grey Area (aka Meatfucker), Jaundiced Outlook, Shoot them Later, Attitude Adjuster, Killing Time, Frank Exchange of Views, Ethics Gradient, Sleeper Service, Serious Callers Only, etc. Their names suggest both their mind-set and sometimes their agendas, but they are mostly entertaining in a very Douglas Adams’ vein.
In any case, I suspect Excession would reward a careful reading, taking the time to understand the veiled motivations of all the different parties. The best parts are the interactions of the Minds with each other. As with all of Banks’ CULTURE books, there are casual throwaway references to intriguing ideas that could form the basis of their own stories. But basically this is story about the AIs and a scattering of humans involved in inscrutable schemes surrounding the Excession.
I have to admit that I listened to the audiobook and had trouble following the plot details, as well as the large cast of AIs, aliens and humans. If you are already a fan of Banks’ CULTURE series, this is probably a 4-star book, but if you are new to his milieu I wouldn’t recommend the audiobook approach, even though the narrator Peter Kenny (who does all the Culture books) does an excellent and hilarious job with a host of different voices. It’s just a bit too much to keep straight. Better to read this one in hardcopy.
September 26, 2016
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2015/03/on-i...
The connection between literature and video games is one of my favorite topics. I was thrilled to get to write for Tor.com about one of the best science fiction books I've read, Excession by Iain M. Banks, and its connection to Sid Meier’s Civilization which, along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, was one of the most addicting games of my life.
____
"If Use of Weapons was a psychological investigation into the world of the Culture, Excession is a philosophical excavation, featuring the AI Minds going to war. The Culture have come across an ancient artifact that is “a perfect black body sphere the size of a mountain” and a “dead star that was at least fifty times older than the universe.” Its disappearance and reappearance decades later spurs off a string of events that make for one of the most frenetic, entertaining, and metaphysical science fiction narratives I’ve read."
Changing my review score to 5. I'd had some reservations about the ending and the human arc initially, but I have to admit, almost a year later, Excession has slowly crept its way up to become the Culture book that, along with Player of Games, has stuck with me the most. This was an awesome and fun review I did with Joe Owens and Kyle Muntz about a year ago, and I'm probably going to do a follow up somewhere. I'm also finally going through Matter, and while it's cool, I miss hearing the Culture Minds which has been one of the best parts of Excession.
http://entropymag.org/excession-review/
4.5 stars. My thoughts to come soon. Loved it. Arguably one of the most fast-paced and tense Culture books yet. The Minds are really badass. I just had some issues with the ending and the human characters, but will write more on that later =0
The connection between literature and video games is one of my favorite topics. I was thrilled to get to write for Tor.com about one of the best science fiction books I've read, Excession by Iain M. Banks, and its connection to Sid Meier’s Civilization which, along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, was one of the most addicting games of my life.
____
"If Use of Weapons was a psychological investigation into the world of the Culture, Excession is a philosophical excavation, featuring the AI Minds going to war. The Culture have come across an ancient artifact that is “a perfect black body sphere the size of a mountain” and a “dead star that was at least fifty times older than the universe.” Its disappearance and reappearance decades later spurs off a string of events that make for one of the most frenetic, entertaining, and metaphysical science fiction narratives I’ve read."
Changing my review score to 5. I'd had some reservations about the ending and the human arc initially, but I have to admit, almost a year later, Excession has slowly crept its way up to become the Culture book that, along with Player of Games, has stuck with me the most. This was an awesome and fun review I did with Joe Owens and Kyle Muntz about a year ago, and I'm probably going to do a follow up somewhere. I'm also finally going through Matter, and while it's cool, I miss hearing the Culture Minds which has been one of the best parts of Excession.
http://entropymag.org/excession-review/
4.5 stars. My thoughts to come soon. Loved it. Arguably one of the most fast-paced and tense Culture books yet. The Minds are really badass. I just had some issues with the ending and the human characters, but will write more on that later =0
October 14, 2009
Early on it felt like there were too many characters, too many plot threads, too many settings, and that Excession was too damn convoluted to be good.
Iain M. Banks’ Excession was living up to the definition of its title:
It was difficult to keep everything straight and difficult to care what was going on in every thread of the tale, and the work doesn't really pay off in a big pay-off kinda way, but there are some positives to take away from the experience of reading Excession.
For one, this is Banks' finest expression of the ship-mind (I have read nothing past Excession, so there may be better to come). He makes us privy to discussions of ships that make up the "Interesting Times Gang," an unofficial branch of the Culture's Special Circumstances who are steeped in a conspiracy to deliver a crushing blow to the upstart "Affronter" society by using the appearance of an Excession, an Outside Context Problem (OCP) which takes the shape of a spherical nothingness tapped into energy outlets in the skein of hypervoluminous space. But he takes us further than communication between the great ship-minds and into the minds of Eccentric ships and Pseudo-Eccentric ships and Traitor ships and Warships. It is a bit of a mind bending journey, and it is some of the hardest Sci-Fi that Banks has written.
But Banks also offers some compelling human interaction, orbiting around Genar-Hofoen, to keep us grounded in the familiarity of humanity.
I was exhausted by the end, and I am tempted to be unforgiving about the length of time it took me to really engage with Excession, and the ending was ultimately unsatisfactory, but I still found myself not wanting to put the book down. I loved too many of the characters -- ships and humans and drones and Affronter alike -- to let them go. I wanted Excession to go on for another thousand pages, but it didn't.
It's never ideal when a book leaves me wanting, but that's a hell of a lot better than leaving me wanting the book to end. So if you're a Banks fan I can say, quite confidently, that this is a must read -- not his best, but worth the time. If you're not a Banks fan, however, stay away. This will not endear you to the man...genius though he may be.
Iain M. Banks’ Excession was living up to the definition of its title:
"Excession; something excessive. Excessively aggressive, excessively powerful, excessively expansionist; whatever. Such things turned up or were created now and again. Encountering an example of was one of the risks you ran when you went a-wandering."It was a true slog to get into, but then somewhere around the time Byr Genar-Hofoen was on his way to the GSV Sleeper Service and that ship was busy waking up folk from its battle tableux, I found myself comfortable in Banks' most sprawling Culture novel (if taken in order) to date.
It was difficult to keep everything straight and difficult to care what was going on in every thread of the tale, and the work doesn't really pay off in a big pay-off kinda way, but there are some positives to take away from the experience of reading Excession.
For one, this is Banks' finest expression of the ship-mind (I have read nothing past Excession, so there may be better to come). He makes us privy to discussions of ships that make up the "Interesting Times Gang," an unofficial branch of the Culture's Special Circumstances who are steeped in a conspiracy to deliver a crushing blow to the upstart "Affronter" society by using the appearance of an Excession, an Outside Context Problem (OCP) which takes the shape of a spherical nothingness tapped into energy outlets in the skein of hypervoluminous space. But he takes us further than communication between the great ship-minds and into the minds of Eccentric ships and Pseudo-Eccentric ships and Traitor ships and Warships. It is a bit of a mind bending journey, and it is some of the hardest Sci-Fi that Banks has written.
But Banks also offers some compelling human interaction, orbiting around Genar-Hofoen, to keep us grounded in the familiarity of humanity.
I was exhausted by the end, and I am tempted to be unforgiving about the length of time it took me to really engage with Excession, and the ending was ultimately unsatisfactory, but I still found myself not wanting to put the book down. I loved too many of the characters -- ships and humans and drones and Affronter alike -- to let them go. I wanted Excession to go on for another thousand pages, but it didn't.
It's never ideal when a book leaves me wanting, but that's a hell of a lot better than leaving me wanting the book to end. So if you're a Banks fan I can say, quite confidently, that this is a must read -- not his best, but worth the time. If you're not a Banks fan, however, stay away. This will not endear you to the man...genius though he may be.
August 14, 2015
Music: something from Slowdive, like "Souvlaki Space Station"
Like putting my feet back into the river, this felt like I had not taken any break from reading this series. This one was fun to read, that can be said :)
So, there's a mysterious ship that apparead many years before - now it is back, and *everybody* seems to want to check it out, prod it, talk to it, see if there's anything new and benefitting in its secrets and even attempt to destroy it. There's also a conspiracy going on...
This novel concentrates on the ships, with names like "Honest Mistake", "Killing Time", "Not Invented Here", "Sleeper Service" and "Grey Area" (which is also known as "Meatfucker" for its tendency to sometimes mess with creatures' heads). There's a few Culture people, like Ulver Seich who lives a kind of Marie Antoinette life (something like that Sofia Coppola film) while also wanting to try adventurous things; the Affronters, playful yet sadistic problem area Culture has wrung its hands long about; the ships of course, and drones... some of these that I met in the story I grew to care about, like the loner at Pittance storage thing. The created worlds on ships were also rather amazing <3
The story ends quite neatly, with some nice twists and with an epilogue that left me bouncy... the world also reminded me of the one seen in Valérian And Laureline comic book series. I have two books from this series unread (I haven't read the books in order), and this does motivate me to read them sooner, I hope.
Lovely :)
Like putting my feet back into the river, this felt like I had not taken any break from reading this series. This one was fun to read, that can be said :)
So, there's a mysterious ship that apparead many years before - now it is back, and *everybody* seems to want to check it out, prod it, talk to it, see if there's anything new and benefitting in its secrets and even attempt to destroy it. There's also a conspiracy going on...
This novel concentrates on the ships, with names like "Honest Mistake", "Killing Time", "Not Invented Here", "Sleeper Service" and "Grey Area" (which is also known as "Meatfucker" for its tendency to sometimes mess with creatures' heads). There's a few Culture people, like Ulver Seich who lives a kind of Marie Antoinette life (something like that Sofia Coppola film) while also wanting to try adventurous things; the Affronters, playful yet sadistic problem area Culture has wrung its hands long about; the ships of course, and drones... some of these that I met in the story I grew to care about, like the loner at Pittance storage thing. The created worlds on ships were also rather amazing <3
The story ends quite neatly, with some nice twists and with an epilogue that left me bouncy... the world also reminded me of the one seen in Valérian And Laureline comic book series. I have two books from this series unread (I haven't read the books in order), and this does motivate me to read them sooner, I hope.
Lovely :)
January 15, 2024
This is my fifth Iain M. Banks ‘Culture’ novel. I purchased the complete set all at once, and I’m working my way through them in order. It’s an interesting series which all takes place in the same Universe and revolves around the same civilization/society (The Culture), but the characters are, for the most part, new each novel. You can think of ‘The Culture’ as similar to ‘The Federation’ in Star Trek.
This book came closer to my favorite theme/plot/storyline in Science Fiction, which is ‘Wonder and Big Ideas’ than the first four books in the series. Bank’s reveals more about the technical wizardry of The Culture and it’s AI ‘Minds.’ We learn more about how FTL works, and we get deep into the thinking, communication, and motivation of the AI ‘Minds.’ We got some exposure to the Minds in prior books, but this one cracks them open bare for us to see. Ultimately, it’s one of the challenges of writing far-future grandiose science fiction. How do you characterize vast artificial intelligence far beyond human thinking in a way that’s approachable and interesting for the reader. In Excession, the Minds are very human-like in their thinking and somewhat in their motivation. It’s slightly disappointing, as I had higher expectations of the Minds, but also understandable, as it wouldn’t make much of a novel, to have them be flawless and communicating in incomprehensible binary languages. There is also an artifact that appears in this book (The Excession), that makes the Culture Minds look like drooling toddlers. This god-like power also creates another common problem for this and similar sci-fi books, how do you end it? Think of 2001 – ‘A Space Odyssey’ – big build up . . . what will happen . . . it’s . . . it’s. . . “something wonderful.” Don’t get me wrong, I love ‘2001,’ it’s just it can’t help being a little anti-climactic.
There is a second plot line in this tale – more focused on humans. Genar-Hofoen is the main character, that keeps us connected to the storyline. Genar-Hofoen again felt to me like the same character Bank’s reincarnates (not literally) over and over again. He’s Horza in ‘Consider Phlebas,’ Jernau Morat Gurgeh in ‘Player of Games,’ and Cheradenine Zakalwe in “Use of Weapons.” Despite being in a future society, managed by super-advanced artificial intelligence, he’s still a ‘notch in the bedpost,’ love ‘em and leave ‘em character. I’d like to talk about my major disappointment in this strand of the tale, but it would include major spoilers.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book. There’s more of the Culture revealed, a deep dive into Mind’s, the threat of galactic war, and some intriguing big sci-fi ideas. I once again enjoyed the non-human characters more than the human ones and I found the ending disappointing. I wish Bank’s would have found a character or two, that could tie all these books together (a drone and ship Mind would be perfect).
Four stars for this creative, energetically written adventure that continues to build out Bank’s wildly imaginative ‘Culture’ universe.
This book came closer to my favorite theme/plot/storyline in Science Fiction, which is ‘Wonder and Big Ideas’ than the first four books in the series. Bank’s reveals more about the technical wizardry of The Culture and it’s AI ‘Minds.’ We learn more about how FTL works, and we get deep into the thinking, communication, and motivation of the AI ‘Minds.’ We got some exposure to the Minds in prior books, but this one cracks them open bare for us to see. Ultimately, it’s one of the challenges of writing far-future grandiose science fiction. How do you characterize vast artificial intelligence far beyond human thinking in a way that’s approachable and interesting for the reader. In Excession, the Minds are very human-like in their thinking and somewhat in their motivation. It’s slightly disappointing, as I had higher expectations of the Minds, but also understandable, as it wouldn’t make much of a novel, to have them be flawless and communicating in incomprehensible binary languages. There is also an artifact that appears in this book (The Excession), that makes the Culture Minds look like drooling toddlers. This god-like power also creates another common problem for this and similar sci-fi books, how do you end it? Think of 2001 – ‘A Space Odyssey’ – big build up . . . what will happen . . . it’s . . . it’s. . . “something wonderful.” Don’t get me wrong, I love ‘2001,’ it’s just it can’t help being a little anti-climactic.
There is a second plot line in this tale – more focused on humans. Genar-Hofoen is the main character, that keeps us connected to the storyline. Genar-Hofoen again felt to me like the same character Bank’s reincarnates (not literally) over and over again. He’s Horza in ‘Consider Phlebas,’ Jernau Morat Gurgeh in ‘Player of Games,’ and Cheradenine Zakalwe in “Use of Weapons.” Despite being in a future society, managed by super-advanced artificial intelligence, he’s still a ‘notch in the bedpost,’ love ‘em and leave ‘em character. I’d like to talk about my major disappointment in this strand of the tale, but it would include major spoilers.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book. There’s more of the Culture revealed, a deep dive into Mind’s, the threat of galactic war, and some intriguing big sci-fi ideas. I once again enjoyed the non-human characters more than the human ones and I found the ending disappointing. I wish Bank’s would have found a character or two, that could tie all these books together (a drone and ship Mind would be perfect).
Four stars for this creative, energetically written adventure that continues to build out Bank’s wildly imaginative ‘Culture’ universe.
June 20, 2018
Finally, the Culture novel I’ve been waiting to read since I started the series. Everyone told me not to start with Excession, so I didn’t—and honestly that was pretty good advice. I can see why people wouldn’t enjoy this novel, and even though I think I would have liked it with no previous Culture experience, reading other books has given me a deeper appreciation for what is happening here.
Excession reminds me of children’s books where the main characters are all animals, and humans have very little to do with the plot. Just replace “animals” with “AI Minds (mostly ships)” and you get the idea. There are only a handful of named human characters in this book, and really only three of them are important to the plot—and even then, they really have very little impact on the A-plot. Iain Banks once again probes the idea that humanity has a place in a post-Singularity galaxy, but we probably won’t be in the driver’s seat.
This is essentially a Big Dumb Object story, but what makes it different is that most of the book is spent discussing what to do with it, and setting things up, than actually doing anything to/about the Excession. On one level, this book is mainly dialogues between ships separated by vast distances. While they debate how to treat the Excession, a faction within their group uses this distraction as an opportunity to engineer a compassionate war. The intrigues-within-intrigues are mindblowing in this. I love how just when I thought I had a handle on who was on whose side, Banks would drop a well-timed twist to blow all my theories out of the water.
Banks writes his machines with a personality only a British author can manage. They are funny and quirky, but some are ponderous and self-important, while others are rude, perverse, or downright twisted. It’s so fascinating to see the range of personalities of the Minds—and also to nip at the edges of our possible comprehension of what it would be like to exist in such a capacity. Banks explains how the Minds’ version of fun and diversion is to model different possible universes, and to actually inhabit and explore these mental universes (which explains the attraction of the Excession, I guess). There is also plenty of commentary on the philosophical tension between the Culture’s kind of enforced stagnation and the temptation to Sublime (ascend to a higher plane of existence, whatever the hell that means). In a post-scarcity society where one wants for nothing and crime has become a kind of performance art, the chief problem is boredom.
Although Minds and drones have been major characters in the other Culture novels I’ve read so far, this is really the first time we start to understand their psychology (such as we pitiful meatbrains can). Minds are created to enjoy whatever function they will serve, whether it’s coordinating a Hub, managing a General Systems Vehicle, or serving as a warship. As the story goes on, we start to see how Minds interact and the way they judge each other. Sleeper Service’s obsession with Dareil and Byr’s conflict is an example of what happens when a Mind feels like they have made a huge mistake. In this respect, while neither of these human characters have a huge effect on dealing with the Excession, their peripheral actions greatly influenced one of the ships directly involved in the plot.
There’s something very Shakespearean to all this, and I feel like I’ve seen this before in Banks’ writing. From the complicated conspiracies to the tragedies and deep regrets, the plot unfolds like a vast tragedy (although you could argue that, in the end, it is a comedy despite the gigadeath—I think Banks is mocking the wider space opera genre here, pointing out how when the narrative operates at such a remove, pathos becomes an intractable problem). The Culture misses out on a huge opportunity because one section of it couldn’t avoid the temptation to play political games.
This conspiracy to incite war is a fascinating subplot, because it makes me wonder is such a story is possible with human proponents. I don’t mean the conspiracy part (that seems obviously plausible), but the fact that such a vast action could happen and the Culture could stay intact. This positive consequence only seems possible because of the way Minds work and the fabric of the Culture itself, which is heavily influenced by the Minds’ operations. The Culture is a paradoxical society, both remarkably flexible yet also very rigid in other ways. Despite technical civil war in the form of some Culture warships firing on other Culture ships, there are not many intimations of long-term repercussions for those actions; in contrast, I think a human-run empire would tear itself apart in the aftermath of such events.
Hey, I’m not saying machines will do it better … but I do welcome our robot overlords!
At a more basic level, I unabashedly revel in Banks’ prose and the way he describes the science-fictional setting of this novel. I’m long over my adolescent fascination with posthumanism and nanomagic, but I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t stop reading Excession; I was totally nerdgasming over descriptions of the ships, the Minds, the way humans interact with the world and even their own bodies. Banks just imagines the Culture’s culture so vividly and believably that you really wish you were there, somewhere, to experience it for yourself. This is a universe I would love to come back to, again and again, and I’m glad I’ve got a bunch of other Culture novels to read before I return to this one.
My reviews of the Culture novels:
← Use of Weapons | Inversions →
Excession reminds me of children’s books where the main characters are all animals, and humans have very little to do with the plot. Just replace “animals” with “AI Minds (mostly ships)” and you get the idea. There are only a handful of named human characters in this book, and really only three of them are important to the plot—and even then, they really have very little impact on the A-plot. Iain Banks once again probes the idea that humanity has a place in a post-Singularity galaxy, but we probably won’t be in the driver’s seat.
This is essentially a Big Dumb Object story, but what makes it different is that most of the book is spent discussing what to do with it, and setting things up, than actually doing anything to/about the Excession. On one level, this book is mainly dialogues between ships separated by vast distances. While they debate how to treat the Excession, a faction within their group uses this distraction as an opportunity to engineer a compassionate war. The intrigues-within-intrigues are mindblowing in this. I love how just when I thought I had a handle on who was on whose side, Banks would drop a well-timed twist to blow all my theories out of the water.
Banks writes his machines with a personality only a British author can manage. They are funny and quirky, but some are ponderous and self-important, while others are rude, perverse, or downright twisted. It’s so fascinating to see the range of personalities of the Minds—and also to nip at the edges of our possible comprehension of what it would be like to exist in such a capacity. Banks explains how the Minds’ version of fun and diversion is to model different possible universes, and to actually inhabit and explore these mental universes (which explains the attraction of the Excession, I guess). There is also plenty of commentary on the philosophical tension between the Culture’s kind of enforced stagnation and the temptation to Sublime (ascend to a higher plane of existence, whatever the hell that means). In a post-scarcity society where one wants for nothing and crime has become a kind of performance art, the chief problem is boredom.
Although Minds and drones have been major characters in the other Culture novels I’ve read so far, this is really the first time we start to understand their psychology (such as we pitiful meatbrains can). Minds are created to enjoy whatever function they will serve, whether it’s coordinating a Hub, managing a General Systems Vehicle, or serving as a warship. As the story goes on, we start to see how Minds interact and the way they judge each other. Sleeper Service’s obsession with Dareil and Byr’s conflict is an example of what happens when a Mind feels like they have made a huge mistake. In this respect, while neither of these human characters have a huge effect on dealing with the Excession, their peripheral actions greatly influenced one of the ships directly involved in the plot.
There’s something very Shakespearean to all this, and I feel like I’ve seen this before in Banks’ writing. From the complicated conspiracies to the tragedies and deep regrets, the plot unfolds like a vast tragedy (although you could argue that, in the end, it is a comedy despite the gigadeath—I think Banks is mocking the wider space opera genre here, pointing out how when the narrative operates at such a remove, pathos becomes an intractable problem). The Culture misses out on a huge opportunity because one section of it couldn’t avoid the temptation to play political games.
This conspiracy to incite war is a fascinating subplot, because it makes me wonder is such a story is possible with human proponents. I don’t mean the conspiracy part (that seems obviously plausible), but the fact that such a vast action could happen and the Culture could stay intact. This positive consequence only seems possible because of the way Minds work and the fabric of the Culture itself, which is heavily influenced by the Minds’ operations. The Culture is a paradoxical society, both remarkably flexible yet also very rigid in other ways. Despite technical civil war in the form of some Culture warships firing on other Culture ships, there are not many intimations of long-term repercussions for those actions; in contrast, I think a human-run empire would tear itself apart in the aftermath of such events.
Hey, I’m not saying machines will do it better … but I do welcome our robot overlords!
At a more basic level, I unabashedly revel in Banks’ prose and the way he describes the science-fictional setting of this novel. I’m long over my adolescent fascination with posthumanism and nanomagic, but I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t stop reading Excession; I was totally nerdgasming over descriptions of the ships, the Minds, the way humans interact with the world and even their own bodies. Banks just imagines the Culture’s culture so vividly and believably that you really wish you were there, somewhere, to experience it for yourself. This is a universe I would love to come back to, again and again, and I’m glad I’ve got a bunch of other Culture novels to read before I return to this one.
My reviews of the Culture novels:
← Use of Weapons | Inversions →
July 21, 2017
I love these books, but if you don't, I understand. The series' uniqueness is both awesome and offputting; the sort of stuff you wish people would write, but then you find excuses not to read.
Reading the Culture novels is rarely the funnest thing you could be doing; but, when you're done, it can mean a whole paradigm shift - steps toward permanently dismantling whatever version of reality is currently trolling your existence.
Reading the Culture novels is rarely the funnest thing you could be doing; but, when you're done, it can mean a whole paradigm shift - steps toward permanently dismantling whatever version of reality is currently trolling your existence.
July 17, 2021
July 2021 update: Eight years after having posted this review, I am still receiving comments from outraged dudebros (and the occasional enabling woman) telling me I had the wrong feelings about the book and had no right to express them publicly. If you can judge a man by his friends, you can definitely judge an author by his fans, and at this point I'm so thoroughly revolted at the bare concept of Iain M Banks that I get hives when I encounter his name in print in any context.
How dare I not realize that this very feminist and enlightened man created an alien pro-rape culture as an obvious signal that they are Despicable and therefore the Bad Guys! It's not like we swim in human male cultures that are exactly the same and which these assholes have no problems with (football teams, the military, fraternities, apparently Hollywood, the music industry, etc. etc. ad nauseum) in which men advertise their manliness to other men very concerned about manliness by objectifying and demeaning women and bragging about very likely non-consensual sexual conquests. Women are not allowed to read fifty pages of this tripe and call it tripe in public. Oh no. The Very Excellently Super Feminist Guys Who Are Really The Experts on Feminism have decreed that encountering a pile of red flags early in the reading experience means you must then subject yourself to hundreds more pages of them before letting other potential readers know that they're there.
Future comments on that line are just going to be deleted and blocked.
~~~~~
I gave up at about page 50.
After being introduced to a woman character who had chosen to be pregnant for 40 years, and then an emissary for a nearby alien civilization where the all-male representatives publicly brag about how many females they've impregnated through rape, I was seriously put off.
Every woman I've ever met has been dying to be un-pregnant by the 8th month. A woman who chooses to be pregnant for 40 years? No swollen ankles, no sore back, no heartburn, no weird skin issues? Did Iain Banks know any women? Did he ever remotely consider for five seconds asking them about this scenario? Who WANTS to be pregnant for FOUR DECADES?
And no, I can't sympathize with someone who thinks it's just swell to go around raping people, and I don't care if it's an alien or not. Thankyouverymuch, I already live in a world with too much rape in it, and plenty of people willing to defend how 'natural' it is. I don't need to spend my imaginary time there too.
I was looking forward to reading this author after hearing so many good reviews. Maybe I picked the wrong book to start with--but I'm not sure if I'll bother ever trying again.
How dare I not realize that this very feminist and enlightened man created an alien pro-rape culture as an obvious signal that they are Despicable and therefore the Bad Guys! It's not like we swim in human male cultures that are exactly the same and which these assholes have no problems with (football teams, the military, fraternities, apparently Hollywood, the music industry, etc. etc. ad nauseum) in which men advertise their manliness to other men very concerned about manliness by objectifying and demeaning women and bragging about very likely non-consensual sexual conquests. Women are not allowed to read fifty pages of this tripe and call it tripe in public. Oh no. The Very Excellently Super Feminist Guys Who Are Really The Experts on Feminism have decreed that encountering a pile of red flags early in the reading experience means you must then subject yourself to hundreds more pages of them before letting other potential readers know that they're there.
Future comments on that line are just going to be deleted and blocked.
~~~~~
I gave up at about page 50.
After being introduced to a woman character who had chosen to be pregnant for 40 years, and then an emissary for a nearby alien civilization where the all-male representatives publicly brag about how many females they've impregnated through rape, I was seriously put off.
Every woman I've ever met has been dying to be un-pregnant by the 8th month. A woman who chooses to be pregnant for 40 years? No swollen ankles, no sore back, no heartburn, no weird skin issues? Did Iain Banks know any women? Did he ever remotely consider for five seconds asking them about this scenario? Who WANTS to be pregnant for FOUR DECADES?
And no, I can't sympathize with someone who thinks it's just swell to go around raping people, and I don't care if it's an alien or not. Thankyouverymuch, I already live in a world with too much rape in it, and plenty of people willing to defend how 'natural' it is. I don't need to spend my imaginary time there too.
I was looking forward to reading this author after hearing so many good reviews. Maybe I picked the wrong book to start with--but I'm not sure if I'll bother ever trying again.
June 26, 2022
Each entry in the Culture 'series' varies tremendously, even though they share the same universe and feature "The Department of Special Circumstances," the Culture's espionage and dirty tricks section. With Excession, a strange artifact, deemed excession, appears one day in a lonely solar system. About the size of a mountain, it defies all attempts at scanning but also taps into two varieties of 'hyperspace' at the same time; something far beyond Culture's tech. Turns out this had appeared roughly 2500 years ago along with a trillion year old star until they both vanished.
Unlike the previous volumes, Excession spends quite a bit of time developing the 'minds', e.g., the AIs that run Culture itself. Yes, the minds are curious about the artifact, but they are also divided regarding what to do about it. In fact, there seems to be a split among the minds and each 'side' undertakes what it thinks is most prudent. On the one hand, there is the sole survivor of the mission that found the artifact 2500 years ago, only she (the captain of the mission then) is now just a mental pattern on a strange Culture ship dedicated to hosting 'sleepers'. When the other minds put pressure on the sleeper ship to access her, it demands the presence of Diplomat Byr Genar-Hofoen to finish up some old business first.
This is a rather strange entry in the series. Yes, we have some outside threat to the Culture and Special Circumstances (SC) attempts to deal with it somehow, but this theme is pretty much a constant in the series. What Banks introduces here as a linchpin to the story is the faded romance between Byr and an old lover/partner residing on the Sleeper ship; in fact, the only live person on the ship. Banks takes a while to develop this theme, introducing the very aggressive Affront race to which Byr currently is posted with, along with the various divisions among the Minds.
Excession tends to meander a bit, but the dry humor of Banks pulls the story along. Also, the true existential questions typically evoked in this series stand out; what makes life meaningful? A truly key question when people normally live several centuries and can be made almost immortal.
I last read this a few decades ago, when Banks was just about the only one writing good space opera; glad to see it has aged well! 4 shimmering stars!
Unlike the previous volumes, Excession spends quite a bit of time developing the 'minds', e.g., the AIs that run Culture itself. Yes, the minds are curious about the artifact, but they are also divided regarding what to do about it. In fact, there seems to be a split among the minds and each 'side' undertakes what it thinks is most prudent. On the one hand, there is the sole survivor of the mission that found the artifact 2500 years ago, only she (the captain of the mission then) is now just a mental pattern on a strange Culture ship dedicated to hosting 'sleepers'. When the other minds put pressure on the sleeper ship to access her, it demands the presence of Diplomat Byr Genar-Hofoen to finish up some old business first.
This is a rather strange entry in the series. Yes, we have some outside threat to the Culture and Special Circumstances (SC) attempts to deal with it somehow, but this theme is pretty much a constant in the series. What Banks introduces here as a linchpin to the story is the faded romance between Byr and an old lover/partner residing on the Sleeper ship; in fact, the only live person on the ship. Banks takes a while to develop this theme, introducing the very aggressive Affront race to which Byr currently is posted with, along with the various divisions among the Minds.
Excession tends to meander a bit, but the dry humor of Banks pulls the story along. Also, the true existential questions typically evoked in this series stand out; what makes life meaningful? A truly key question when people normally live several centuries and can be made almost immortal.
I last read this a few decades ago, when Banks was just about the only one writing good space opera; glad to see it has aged well! 4 shimmering stars!
August 9, 2020
In one sentence: A psychologically realistic utopia (: a flawed one) nestled in a soft opera-of-space-operas.
To be read when: you don't think we have anywhere to go. / On a train.
(This is more of a review of the Culture series. Excession is my favourite of them - even just seeing that slightly bad 90s cover gets a reaction out of me - but none of the books is so great on its own. I just keep re-reading them. This essay gives a flavour of the intellectual thrill underneath Banks' hand-waving, hand-wringing, and gags. Start with Player of Games or Use of Weapons, and leave Phlebas to last, it's not great except thematically.)
The two worst omissions from sci-fi are social development and software development. Banks covers the first so memorably, so thrillingly, that the series is a permanent touchstone for me. The Culture is actually different from us - even though underneath their society revs our great alien machine, liberalism unbound.
Banks was always quite open about how didactic his sci-fi was; it is saved by his inventiveness and psychological realism amidst technological fantasy.
This scene (from Use of Weapons) had a large effect on me as a child:
As did this, before I studied formal philosophy and received a resounding confirmation of it:
But this was also before I got into technical pursuits which lend us hope that the above grim realism can be defeated by self-awareness, quantification, and epistemic care. Sometimes.
Galef type:
Theory 2 - model of what makes something succeed or fail &
Values 2 - thought experiments for you to reflect on how you feel about something.
Style 3 - tickles your aesthetic sense in a way that obliquely makes you a more interesting, generative thinker.
To be read when: you don't think we have anywhere to go. / On a train.
(This is more of a review of the Culture series. Excession is my favourite of them - even just seeing that slightly bad 90s cover gets a reaction out of me - but none of the books is so great on its own. I just keep re-reading them. This essay gives a flavour of the intellectual thrill underneath Banks' hand-waving, hand-wringing, and gags. Start with Player of Games or Use of Weapons, and leave Phlebas to last, it's not great except thematically.)
The two worst omissions from sci-fi are social development and software development. Banks covers the first so memorably, so thrillingly, that the series is a permanent touchstone for me. The Culture is actually different from us - even though underneath their society revs our great alien machine, liberalism unbound.
Banks was always quite open about how didactic his sci-fi was; it is saved by his inventiveness and psychological realism amidst technological fantasy.
This scene (from Use of Weapons) had a large effect on me as a child:
'Of course I don't have to do this,' one middle-aged man said, carefully cleaning the table with a damp cloth. He put the cloth in a little pouch, sat down beside him. "But look; this table's clean.'
He agreed that the table was clean.
"Usually,' the man said. "I work on alien -- no offence -- alien religions; Directional Emphasis In Religious Observance; that's my specialty ... like when temples or graves or prayers always have to face in a certain direction; that sort of thing? Well, I catalogue, evaluate, compare; I come up with theories and argue with colleagues, here and elsewhere. But ... the job's never finished; always new examples, and even the old ones get re-evaluated, and new people come along with new ideas about what you thought was settled ... but,' he slapped the table, "when you clean a table you clean a table. You feel you've done something. It's an achievement."
"But in the end, it's still cleaning a table."
"And therefore does not really signify on the cosmic scale of events?' the man suggested.
He smiled in response to the man's grin, "Well, yes.'
'But then what does signify? My other work? Is that really important, either?' I could try composing wonderful musical works, or day-long entertainment epics, but what would that do? Give people pleasure? My wiping this table gives me pleasure. And people come to a clean table, which gives them pleasure. And anyway" - the man laughed - "people die; stars die; universes die. What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? Of course, if all I did was wipe tables, then of course it would seem a mean and despicable waste of my huge intellectual potential. But because I choose to do it, it gives me pleasure. And," the man said with a smile, "it's a good way of meeting people."
As did this, before I studied formal philosophy and received a resounding confirmation of it:
“Aw, come on; argue, dammit.”
“I don’t believe in argument,” he said, looking out.
“You don’t?” Erens said, genuinely surprised. “Shit, and I thought I was the cynical one.”
“It’s not cynicism,” he said flatly. “I just think people overvalue argument because they like to hear themselves talk.”
“Oh well, thank you.”
“It’s comforting, I suppose.” He watched the stars wheel, like absurdly slow shells seen at night: rising, peaking, falling... (And reminded himself that the stars too would explode, perhaps, one day.) “Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed,” he said. “And I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot out their excuses.”
“Excuses, eh?"
"Yes, excuses," he said, with what Erens thought might just have been a trace of bitterness. "I strongly suspect the things people believe in are usually just what they instinctively feel is right; the excuses, the justifications, the things you're supposed to argue about, come later. They're the least important part of the belief. That's why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place." He looked at Erens. "You've attacked the wrong thing.”
But this was also before I got into technical pursuits which lend us hope that the above grim realism can be defeated by self-awareness, quantification, and epistemic care. Sometimes.
Galef type:
Theory 2 - model of what makes something succeed or fail &
Values 2 - thought experiments for you to reflect on how you feel about something.
Style 3 - tickles your aesthetic sense in a way that obliquely makes you a more interesting, generative thinker.
November 4, 2020
Excession is the fifth volume of Iain M. Banks’ “Culture” series. The continued story of The Culture as they once again meddle in foreign affairs, and the emergence of an unknown entity called “The Excession.”
The story of Excession is a complexity of multiple threads, as wildly diverse and interconnected as The Culture itself. One, a touching and contemporary love story about two souls drawn together by the same differences that rip them apart and the mission of a sentient starship to help them both find closure. In another, we see The Culture’s struggle to gracefully mentor an aggressive alien race called “The Affront,” in which it’s AI “minds” engage in very human-like political intrigue that nearly results in disaster. Finally, we see how The Culture’s AI minds deal with a possibly omnipotent inter-dimensional threat of unknown intent. The author weaves these elements together with a Swiss watchmaker’s skill, rewarding patient readers with a masterwork time-piece. I laughed (a lot), I cheered, and I cried.
Joe Abercrombie is an author I love for his masterful sense of comedic timing, and Iain Banks gives him a run for the money in Excession. There were several scenes where Banks “drops the mic” and swaggers out of the room—sophisticated, self-evident, and irrefutable comedy achieved. No need to even look back to see if the ball goes through the hoop, nothing but net.
Banks continues to build on the theme of so-called “superpowers” interfering in sovereign governments’ affairs. Each time around, the stakes get a little higher, and the consequences a little worse, and The Culture’s case for being “in the right” a little weaker. It’s fascinating to see this plot playing out given the escalating provocations of contemporary real-world superpowers.
Some of the more prominent themes explored in Excession are the (sometimes unknowing) arrogance of military superpowers, the beauty and horrors of love, the value (or lack of) of unilateral action, and the balance between duty and commitment and individualism (individual thought). Banks handles so many big questions and ideas in his books with the tender loving care of someone who has taken the time to think and learn about them.
Excession’s characters are the best written of the three Culture novels I’ve read (Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Excession). Banks succeeded in writing perfectly flawed personalities that were both relatable and alien. More so than in the other books, I got a sense of what it might be like to be a Culture citizen. Interactions between characters and their motivations were both real and plausible.
The Culture setting is expanded further by featuring AI “minds” as main characters. Previous volumes featured drones and sentient ships as characters, but Excession took this concept further, giving readers a better feel for The Culture’s social gestalt. I loved this aspect of expanding the setting by improving existing elements, rather than just adding more, more, more. These books were a labor of love for Banks.
Excession is another stone-cold sci-fi masterpiece and must-read classic in the Culture series. Culture books share a setting and are not “sequential” per se, but previous exposure to the setting seems more necessary in Excession than in previous volumes. As such, I recommend reading at least The Player of Games and Use of Weapons before Excession.
This review is also posted on my blog, Hidden Gems.
The story of Excession is a complexity of multiple threads, as wildly diverse and interconnected as The Culture itself. One, a touching and contemporary love story about two souls drawn together by the same differences that rip them apart and the mission of a sentient starship to help them both find closure. In another, we see The Culture’s struggle to gracefully mentor an aggressive alien race called “The Affront,” in which it’s AI “minds” engage in very human-like political intrigue that nearly results in disaster. Finally, we see how The Culture’s AI minds deal with a possibly omnipotent inter-dimensional threat of unknown intent. The author weaves these elements together with a Swiss watchmaker’s skill, rewarding patient readers with a masterwork time-piece. I laughed (a lot), I cheered, and I cried.
Joe Abercrombie is an author I love for his masterful sense of comedic timing, and Iain Banks gives him a run for the money in Excession. There were several scenes where Banks “drops the mic” and swaggers out of the room—sophisticated, self-evident, and irrefutable comedy achieved. No need to even look back to see if the ball goes through the hoop, nothing but net.
Banks continues to build on the theme of so-called “superpowers” interfering in sovereign governments’ affairs. Each time around, the stakes get a little higher, and the consequences a little worse, and The Culture’s case for being “in the right” a little weaker. It’s fascinating to see this plot playing out given the escalating provocations of contemporary real-world superpowers.
Some of the more prominent themes explored in Excession are the (sometimes unknowing) arrogance of military superpowers, the beauty and horrors of love, the value (or lack of) of unilateral action, and the balance between duty and commitment and individualism (individual thought). Banks handles so many big questions and ideas in his books with the tender loving care of someone who has taken the time to think and learn about them.
Excession’s characters are the best written of the three Culture novels I’ve read (Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Excession). Banks succeeded in writing perfectly flawed personalities that were both relatable and alien. More so than in the other books, I got a sense of what it might be like to be a Culture citizen. Interactions between characters and their motivations were both real and plausible.
The Culture setting is expanded further by featuring AI “minds” as main characters. Previous volumes featured drones and sentient ships as characters, but Excession took this concept further, giving readers a better feel for The Culture’s social gestalt. I loved this aspect of expanding the setting by improving existing elements, rather than just adding more, more, more. These books were a labor of love for Banks.
Excession is another stone-cold sci-fi masterpiece and must-read classic in the Culture series. Culture books share a setting and are not “sequential” per se, but previous exposure to the setting seems more necessary in Excession than in previous volumes. As such, I recommend reading at least The Player of Games and Use of Weapons before Excession.
This review is also posted on my blog, Hidden Gems.
February 16, 2024
‘Excession’, #5 in Iain M. Banks’ Culture series (start here: Consider Phlebas ) reminded me of the work of many science fiction writers of the 1970’s. I don’t know why exactly. Something about the high-concept speculative science, the ironic tongue-in-cheekiness, with a plot that is seemingly wandering off the point a lot, the thoughts in my Mind are wondering if the author had taken LSD after attending a Worldcon convention before sitting down to write this novel. However, it has a publishing date of 1996. So.
Speaking of Minds, this particular book in the series focuses on the Minds of Culture. Minds are ultra-intelligent, ultra-sentient artificial intelligences created eons ago by humans. They often live on a ship. Minds long ago took all governance out of the hands of Humanity - at least, of those people who accept the AIs’ authority. The Minds, along with other small sentient machines, take care of people, even if it means some involved folks sometimes are dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing. If societies, not just those of humans, on planets and other various habitats, like orbitals, accept Minds as the bosses of everything, societies turn into technological heavens. No money is needed, there are no existential worries of any kind, brain and body implants offer whatever one may desire. People can change their bodies into whatever gender, with implants they can connect into whatever entertainment, they can decide to ‘sleep’ for thousands of years on Sleeper ships or live and play on GSVs (host ships). People have implanted glands which they can activate to put themselves into whatever mood they want. People live very very long lives because they can regrow their bodies, and any injury can be repaired. To be in a Mind-controlled Culture, it is like being in a dream VR world forever.
Below is a link to info about the Culture and the Minds:
https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Li...
The names of the ships are hilarious!
Of course, in the Universe there are many resentful entities and cultures who want nothing to do with the paradise Minds can give them. One such has decided to call themselves the Affronters - creatures of four limbs, tentacles, eye stalks, two meters in circumference around a ball body suspended under a sac of gas, with a beak for a mouth. The Affronters are a warlike aggressive race, which for example, uses living bat-type animals in a tennis-like game, completely aware of the animal’s suffering in being struck back and forth. In fact, the more the animal struggles, the happier the Affronters are in the challenge of hitting the ‘ball.’ It is a culture which tortures, maims and kills for any affront or failure. Adult Affronters terrorize and punish their own children with pain and death for any sign of weakness or disobedience.
Genar-Hofoen, a human, kinda likes them. He’s been among them, living with them, partying with them for years on their planet. He is in the Culture’s Diplomatic Force. (The Culture has a number of “Contact” agencies, some of them secretly spying and secretly influencing non-Culture governments the Culture thinks is self-destructive.). He has to wear a protective skin at all times. The Affronters play very very hard. Their air would kill him too. But is something else brewing? Are the Affronters plotting against the Culture?
Genar-Hofeon gets a notification from SC (Special Circumstances) - which is kinda like the Minds’ CIA. The SC sends an image of Genar-Hofoen’s uncle to visit him as a hologram to plead their case for his help. They want him for a special visit to a wildling Mind, a sleeper ship (with a load of millions of people in suspended animation) which lately is appearing to be more eccentric beyond its normal range of eccentricities. The Culture wants him to talk to a sleeper aboard the ship The Sleeper Service. The sleeper was a captain of a ship which reported a weird anomaly 2,000 years ago. The Culture has discovered the weird anomaly has appeared again, seemingly some sort of a traveling black hole (not possible, right?), a thing with mysterious energies. It has become an interesting development the Minds want to examine.
The Minds, whether eccentric or normal, all have extreme curiosity. I think they are very bored, generally, and they do what bored people do - create ways to distract and entertain themselves. Humans are very entertaining to them, as well as puzzling, and upsetting, being witting and unwitting agents of chaos.
You see, gentler reader, not every Mind and every Culture-educated being likes being part of the Culture completely. They want more challenges or genuine threats to their lives, or they simply want to struggle, or experience being immersed inside other societies and cultures. “Eccentric” Minds are Mind ships who want to go their own ways under their own decisions and goals without entirely sticking inside the lines suggested by the mainstream Minds (the Culture prefers to suggest obedience, not demand it). Eccentric Minds are still part of the Culture in many ways, yet they live mostly apart, doing their own thing, too. They can disconnect from the Culture completely for millennia. However, sometimes Minds lose their minds, go crazy. They also can be taken over by another sentience attacking their computer brains. But that is rare.
There was a terrible war earlier that involved the Minds and the Culture (see Consider Phlebas). It was a terrible war, involving the fighting off of a horrible religious sect who hated the hedonistic Culture. Clues are adding up to maybe a possible new war might be beginning. But is it the anomaly, or, yikes, the Affronters?
I enjoy this imaginative series! The Minds can be hilariously ironic, sometimes unintentional on their part, but intentional on the author’s! Some of the books are very bloody, though, because people and other entities can be like that. Not this one.
Speaking of Minds, this particular book in the series focuses on the Minds of Culture. Minds are ultra-intelligent, ultra-sentient artificial intelligences created eons ago by humans. They often live on a ship. Minds long ago took all governance out of the hands of Humanity - at least, of those people who accept the AIs’ authority. The Minds, along with other small sentient machines, take care of people, even if it means some involved folks sometimes are dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing. If societies, not just those of humans, on planets and other various habitats, like orbitals, accept Minds as the bosses of everything, societies turn into technological heavens. No money is needed, there are no existential worries of any kind, brain and body implants offer whatever one may desire. People can change their bodies into whatever gender, with implants they can connect into whatever entertainment, they can decide to ‘sleep’ for thousands of years on Sleeper ships or live and play on GSVs (host ships). People have implanted glands which they can activate to put themselves into whatever mood they want. People live very very long lives because they can regrow their bodies, and any injury can be repaired. To be in a Mind-controlled Culture, it is like being in a dream VR world forever.
Below is a link to info about the Culture and the Minds:
https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Li...
The names of the ships are hilarious!
Of course, in the Universe there are many resentful entities and cultures who want nothing to do with the paradise Minds can give them. One such has decided to call themselves the Affronters - creatures of four limbs, tentacles, eye stalks, two meters in circumference around a ball body suspended under a sac of gas, with a beak for a mouth. The Affronters are a warlike aggressive race, which for example, uses living bat-type animals in a tennis-like game, completely aware of the animal’s suffering in being struck back and forth. In fact, the more the animal struggles, the happier the Affronters are in the challenge of hitting the ‘ball.’ It is a culture which tortures, maims and kills for any affront or failure. Adult Affronters terrorize and punish their own children with pain and death for any sign of weakness or disobedience.
Genar-Hofoen, a human, kinda likes them. He’s been among them, living with them, partying with them for years on their planet. He is in the Culture’s Diplomatic Force. (The Culture has a number of “Contact” agencies, some of them secretly spying and secretly influencing non-Culture governments the Culture thinks is self-destructive.). He has to wear a protective skin at all times. The Affronters play very very hard. Their air would kill him too. But is something else brewing? Are the Affronters plotting against the Culture?
Genar-Hofeon gets a notification from SC (Special Circumstances) - which is kinda like the Minds’ CIA. The SC sends an image of Genar-Hofoen’s uncle to visit him as a hologram to plead their case for his help. They want him for a special visit to a wildling Mind, a sleeper ship (with a load of millions of people in suspended animation) which lately is appearing to be more eccentric beyond its normal range of eccentricities. The Culture wants him to talk to a sleeper aboard the ship The Sleeper Service. The sleeper was a captain of a ship which reported a weird anomaly 2,000 years ago. The Culture has discovered the weird anomaly has appeared again, seemingly some sort of a traveling black hole (not possible, right?), a thing with mysterious energies. It has become an interesting development the Minds want to examine.
The Minds, whether eccentric or normal, all have extreme curiosity. I think they are very bored, generally, and they do what bored people do - create ways to distract and entertain themselves. Humans are very entertaining to them, as well as puzzling, and upsetting, being witting and unwitting agents of chaos.
You see, gentler reader, not every Mind and every Culture-educated being likes being part of the Culture completely. They want more challenges or genuine threats to their lives, or they simply want to struggle, or experience being immersed inside other societies and cultures. “Eccentric” Minds are Mind ships who want to go their own ways under their own decisions and goals without entirely sticking inside the lines suggested by the mainstream Minds (the Culture prefers to suggest obedience, not demand it). Eccentric Minds are still part of the Culture in many ways, yet they live mostly apart, doing their own thing, too. They can disconnect from the Culture completely for millennia. However, sometimes Minds lose their minds, go crazy. They also can be taken over by another sentience attacking their computer brains. But that is rare.
There was a terrible war earlier that involved the Minds and the Culture (see Consider Phlebas). It was a terrible war, involving the fighting off of a horrible religious sect who hated the hedonistic Culture. Clues are adding up to maybe a possible new war might be beginning. But is it the anomaly, or, yikes, the Affronters?
I enjoy this imaginative series! The Minds can be hilariously ironic, sometimes unintentional on their part, but intentional on the author’s! Some of the books are very bloody, though, because people and other entities can be like that. Not this one.
July 14, 2019
This is an epic science fiction/space-opera novel by a very impressive author. It is also a #5 in the series, so, no matter how much you are intrigued by this review (here is hoping), do not go out an acquire it without reading some of the early ones as your confusion will be palpable.
A mysterious artifact appears mysteriously in a remote corner of space, beside a mysterious, trillion-year-old sun from a different universe. It has the ship Minds, the Culture and several of it's allies in a tizzy and is the catalyst for a number of conspiracies, political maneuverings and deals. It is also a chance for the author to give the reader a lot more about the Culture from a new perspective.
Several small things I really enjoyed about this book. I LOVED the way the inhabitants of Banks' world call 'space' volume; as in "..all the ships in the adjacent volume.." it is with small details like this that an author effortlessly (for the reader at least) sets the scene of a different time and place. The Excession has lot of little touches like this one.
The complexity of the intertwining plots is fascinating and I liked the way that the ship Minds make up the majority of the characters, the intrigues and the substance of the plot. In the universe of The Culture, Minds are smarter-than-human AIs, individuals in their own legal right many of them are in ships of different kinds, some in stations. While there are a few human actors -and one exceptionally alien species- as main characters, the majority of our social interaction is from Minds, or their Avatars and I really enjoyed the complexity of these relations. This book takes all the previous notions, from earlier novels of AIs as ships and takes it to whole new levels of detail and fascination.
The detail! The detail of Banks' world is exquisite if not intimidating. It is hard for me to decide if this is sci-fi or space opera; I lean toward sci-fi myself, but possibly there is not enough hard tech/science in it for some people. Still, the detail of the different aspects of minds in the Culture, the details of the different kinds of lifestyle in the Culture and the general scene of a whole world operating just out of sight. The is very, very impressive.
Where the detail becomes overwhelming: Unfortunately, quite early and then all the way through. This is a long book and it took me a long time to read it, by my standards. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but at the end of the day, I rather suspect that I missed a lot of it. One of the main problems I had was actually with the best, the most impressive of the aspects of this book: One that I have total respect for. Using the Minds (mostly of ships) as the main characters was perfect for the story. The way the ships were named, the way they communicated their 'inner lives' as distict from their crew who we barely encounter... It was all formidably well done and well thought out. But I, regrettably, could not keep them straight in my head most of the time. Like you say at the end of a bad date "it is not you, it is me!"
The ships, these formidable, intelligent, individual agents have names that suit them, chosen by themselves, and occasionally they change them. Also they communicate via.... some kind of signal? a bit like an email trail...? And directly with each other. So you have these long discussions between Fate Amenable To Change, Ethics Gradient, Grey Area and similar. It is great stuff, even if, like myself you can't keep them straight in your head. But it detracted from the story for me in a big way.
You see, with a random name like that, no scene or context to help determine who is who and no visuals I really didn't know what faction was doing what. To be honest (and this is embarrassing) It was only in the last hundred pages that by reading a ships name I knew who the ship was. There are 452 pages if you include the Epilogue, so I was kind of late for that party.
The other down side to this level of character confusion (in addition to suspecting my own intelligence is lacking for most of the book), is that it makes it hard to pick up and put down this novel. My lifestyle does not include the ability to put my life on hold for the entire reading experience. I have to put books down to go to work, stuff, things. When you are continually reading it is easier to keep the context and the characters distinct in your head. Picking up this book for half an hours quiet reading time in my lunch break, it would take me a good five-ten minutes to figure out where I was and who was who.
That is a lot of complaint isn't it? The amazing thing is that I still really enjoyed this book. I doubt I remember all of it, not sure that I ever understood whole swaths of it; exactly how many different Mind/Ship factions were there? At least two surely? Maybe three....?
And yet, despite that I enjoyed it, might read it again, will definitely read more of the Culture books and am very impressed by it in general. Am I a literary masochist? Quite possibly.
As a final note; how good is Banks at oceans, seas and all things marine? The man has an absolute genius for describing anything sea related. In this book we have a woman living in a tower by a simulated ocean in which marine animals live their lives (yes, that is just how big these ships are, and just how complex their minds, that they can create and maintain this). To be honest I have walked on beaches beside real seas that were less convincing than the one he writes here.
Magnificent!
A mysterious artifact appears mysteriously in a remote corner of space, beside a mysterious, trillion-year-old sun from a different universe. It has the ship Minds, the Culture and several of it's allies in a tizzy and is the catalyst for a number of conspiracies, political maneuverings and deals. It is also a chance for the author to give the reader a lot more about the Culture from a new perspective.
Several small things I really enjoyed about this book. I LOVED the way the inhabitants of Banks' world call 'space' volume; as in "..all the ships in the adjacent volume.." it is with small details like this that an author effortlessly (for the reader at least) sets the scene of a different time and place. The Excession has lot of little touches like this one.
The complexity of the intertwining plots is fascinating and I liked the way that the ship Minds make up the majority of the characters, the intrigues and the substance of the plot. In the universe of The Culture, Minds are smarter-than-human AIs, individuals in their own legal right many of them are in ships of different kinds, some in stations. While there are a few human actors -and one exceptionally alien species- as main characters, the majority of our social interaction is from Minds, or their Avatars and I really enjoyed the complexity of these relations. This book takes all the previous notions, from earlier novels of AIs as ships and takes it to whole new levels of detail and fascination.
The detail! The detail of Banks' world is exquisite if not intimidating. It is hard for me to decide if this is sci-fi or space opera; I lean toward sci-fi myself, but possibly there is not enough hard tech/science in it for some people. Still, the detail of the different aspects of minds in the Culture, the details of the different kinds of lifestyle in the Culture and the general scene of a whole world operating just out of sight. The is very, very impressive.
Where the detail becomes overwhelming: Unfortunately, quite early and then all the way through. This is a long book and it took me a long time to read it, by my standards. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but at the end of the day, I rather suspect that I missed a lot of it. One of the main problems I had was actually with the best, the most impressive of the aspects of this book: One that I have total respect for. Using the Minds (mostly of ships) as the main characters was perfect for the story. The way the ships were named, the way they communicated their 'inner lives' as distict from their crew who we barely encounter... It was all formidably well done and well thought out. But I, regrettably, could not keep them straight in my head most of the time. Like you say at the end of a bad date "it is not you, it is me!"
The ships, these formidable, intelligent, individual agents have names that suit them, chosen by themselves, and occasionally they change them. Also they communicate via.... some kind of signal? a bit like an email trail...? And directly with each other. So you have these long discussions between Fate Amenable To Change, Ethics Gradient, Grey Area and similar. It is great stuff, even if, like myself you can't keep them straight in your head. But it detracted from the story for me in a big way.
You see, with a random name like that, no scene or context to help determine who is who and no visuals I really didn't know what faction was doing what. To be honest (and this is embarrassing) It was only in the last hundred pages that by reading a ships name I knew who the ship was. There are 452 pages if you include the Epilogue, so I was kind of late for that party.
The other down side to this level of character confusion (in addition to suspecting my own intelligence is lacking for most of the book), is that it makes it hard to pick up and put down this novel. My lifestyle does not include the ability to put my life on hold for the entire reading experience. I have to put books down to go to work, stuff, things. When you are continually reading it is easier to keep the context and the characters distinct in your head. Picking up this book for half an hours quiet reading time in my lunch break, it would take me a good five-ten minutes to figure out where I was and who was who.
That is a lot of complaint isn't it? The amazing thing is that I still really enjoyed this book. I doubt I remember all of it, not sure that I ever understood whole swaths of it; exactly how many different Mind/Ship factions were there? At least two surely? Maybe three....?
And yet, despite that I enjoyed it, might read it again, will definitely read more of the Culture books and am very impressed by it in general. Am I a literary masochist? Quite possibly.
As a final note; how good is Banks at oceans, seas and all things marine? The man has an absolute genius for describing anything sea related. In this book we have a woman living in a tower by a simulated ocean in which marine animals live their lives (yes, that is just how big these ships are, and just how complex their minds, that they can create and maintain this). To be honest I have walked on beaches beside real seas that were less convincing than the one he writes here.
Magnificent!
January 1, 2012
What sort of gift can you get for the Culture that has everything?
That is, how on Earth (or, rather, off) do you make Utopia interesting, when all society's ills have been resolved, and all misery is at worst optional?
That is the central conundrum with which Iain M. Banks has been grappling in all of his Culture novels, and Excession is perhaps his most explicit examination of that question to date, even though it came out 'way back in 1996. An "excession," in Banks' parlance, is something that comes from outside the star-spanning Culture's comfortable context—something excessive, beyond the pale. Something which may be beyond even the Culture's considerable ability to manage.
As the novel opens, it's been hundreds of years since the Culture has been confronted with anything even marginally threatening, and when a ship run by the Zetetic Elench (a somewhat heterodox offshoot of the Culture) comes across a star that appears to be older than the universe itself, the news causes a typically chaotic reaction. Various elements of the Culture (and other Galactic small-c cultures) prepare for contact, for cooptation, and... for war. Just in case.
The outcome is by no means certain, and the working-out of it is one of the significant strengths of this complicated novel. The thing I liked most about Excession in retrospect, though, wasn't the grand sweep of its space battles, nor was it the sheer scale of the universe Banks has constructed, though I liked those too. Nor was it the witty banter between Minds and meat—there was in fact not as much of such banter as I'd have liked. The novel did at times seem a little too dry to me—a little too much told, and not enough shown. It wasn't even the Laumeresque aliens known as the Affronters, though they were often played for laughs, and quite effectively too.
No, the parts of this book I most appreciated in the end were the parts where Banks points out that even in the midst of a cornucopia of physical plenty, where death itself is an arbitrary and personal choice rather than an inevitability, human beings would in fact and quite beyond all reason find ways to be miserable. This shows up in small ways, contrasting vividly with the stellar-scale explosions and tremendous accelerations involved: Dajeil Gelian's lonely, expectant vigil, and Gestra Ishmethit's self-imposed exile on the asteroid Pittance, for two such individuals.
Very few authors can mingle the universal and the personal as well as Banks; I think it's important to acknowledge that, quite apart from the whiz-bang pyrotechnics, there's actually some depth here too, some introspection which could easily be missed amid all the flash. Banks has constructed a universe where, despite all of the gigantic technical achievements he depicts, the panoply of Galactic history, human beings still matter.
Banks is always at or near the top of my to-read list, and this book is, in the end, no exception.
That is, how on Earth (or, rather, off) do you make Utopia interesting, when all society's ills have been resolved, and all misery is at worst optional?
That is the central conundrum with which Iain M. Banks has been grappling in all of his Culture novels, and Excession is perhaps his most explicit examination of that question to date, even though it came out 'way back in 1996. An "excession," in Banks' parlance, is something that comes from outside the star-spanning Culture's comfortable context—something excessive, beyond the pale. Something which may be beyond even the Culture's considerable ability to manage.
As the novel opens, it's been hundreds of years since the Culture has been confronted with anything even marginally threatening, and when a ship run by the Zetetic Elench (a somewhat heterodox offshoot of the Culture) comes across a star that appears to be older than the universe itself, the news causes a typically chaotic reaction. Various elements of the Culture (and other Galactic small-c cultures) prepare for contact, for cooptation, and... for war. Just in case.
The outcome is by no means certain, and the working-out of it is one of the significant strengths of this complicated novel. The thing I liked most about Excession in retrospect, though, wasn't the grand sweep of its space battles, nor was it the sheer scale of the universe Banks has constructed, though I liked those too. Nor was it the witty banter between Minds and meat—there was in fact not as much of such banter as I'd have liked. The novel did at times seem a little too dry to me—a little too much told, and not enough shown. It wasn't even the Laumeresque aliens known as the Affronters, though they were often played for laughs, and quite effectively too.
No, the parts of this book I most appreciated in the end were the parts where Banks points out that even in the midst of a cornucopia of physical plenty, where death itself is an arbitrary and personal choice rather than an inevitability, human beings would in fact and quite beyond all reason find ways to be miserable. This shows up in small ways, contrasting vividly with the stellar-scale explosions and tremendous accelerations involved: Dajeil Gelian's lonely, expectant vigil, and Gestra Ishmethit's self-imposed exile on the asteroid Pittance, for two such individuals.
Very few authors can mingle the universal and the personal as well as Banks; I think it's important to acknowledge that, quite apart from the whiz-bang pyrotechnics, there's actually some depth here too, some introspection which could easily be missed amid all the flash. Banks has constructed a universe where, despite all of the gigantic technical achievements he depicts, the panoply of Galactic history, human beings still matter.
Banks is always at or near the top of my to-read list, and this book is, in the end, no exception.
October 4, 2013
Terry Pratchett once said that horses take longer to get up to full speed because they had more legs to sort out. Under those conditions, Excession has about a dozen damn legs, because this book takes half its length to feel like it's gaining any momentum.
The cast of thousands approach doesn't really help. By the time the narrative returned to some characters I had trouble remember who they were or what exactly they wanted. And the ridiculous names of the machine minds, avatars, and drones didn't help matters any.
But ultimately the biggest issue with Excession is that it destroys a lot of the mystery around the Culture of the previous books and doesn't really add anything that great. We get to read conversations between the minds, massive super-AIs, and they end up sounding more quaint than cerebral. One would think that a bunch of super computers could exchange novels-worth of information instantaneously, but their conversations have the ho-hum quality of a bunch of C3POs talking about tea serving traditions.
Humans don't get off much better. It's several millenia in the future, but the dialogue and mannerisms seems straight out of the 80's. Men and women in this book are all somewhat ridiculous stereotypes, and you never get the sense of thousands of years of advancement in the way they interact. It takes the air out of the fanciful world of the Culture, and makes them seem more like a future proxy for the British Empire, a bunch of ultra-powerful aristocrats enforcing their values on everyone they view as stepping out of line.
I respect the ambition that the Culture books show, but sadly, when the curtain is pulled back and their world rendered explicit, it can't help but disappoint.
The cast of thousands approach doesn't really help. By the time the narrative returned to some characters I had trouble remember who they were or what exactly they wanted. And the ridiculous names of the machine minds, avatars, and drones didn't help matters any.
But ultimately the biggest issue with Excession is that it destroys a lot of the mystery around the Culture of the previous books and doesn't really add anything that great. We get to read conversations between the minds, massive super-AIs, and they end up sounding more quaint than cerebral. One would think that a bunch of super computers could exchange novels-worth of information instantaneously, but their conversations have the ho-hum quality of a bunch of C3POs talking about tea serving traditions.
Humans don't get off much better. It's several millenia in the future, but the dialogue and mannerisms seems straight out of the 80's. Men and women in this book are all somewhat ridiculous stereotypes, and you never get the sense of thousands of years of advancement in the way they interact. It takes the air out of the fanciful world of the Culture, and makes them seem more like a future proxy for the British Empire, a bunch of ultra-powerful aristocrats enforcing their values on everyone they view as stepping out of line.
I respect the ambition that the Culture books show, but sadly, when the curtain is pulled back and their world rendered explicit, it can't help but disappoint.
January 17, 2009
Excession is Iain Banks' clunkiest book so far. It is certainly enjoyable as it introduces us to Infinite Fun, but it just had too many distractions and too many characters, with far too many of them Minds whose personalities and loyalties simply didn't make quite enough sense through 400 pages. It might have helped if I had the full sized paperback, but I had the airport sized one and.. it just got tedious. It could not have felt like a page-turner otherwise.
On the whole however, Excession is a very good story, a weird ass love story, a fairly decent alien story and an excellent introduction to how machine intelligences might work. Impossible to do in a movie, this one. Something of an absolute necessity in understanding the Culture and how Minds work together or separate, with some still unrealized questions about how exactly it is the Minds regard humans - symbionts? pets? masters?
Well, actually I shouldn't say that, because one of the major motivations of a major character in the book, the Eccentric ship Sleeper Service is to make amends for a decision that lead to the catastrophic injury to a man and the psychological trauma of a woman whe were once lovers. As part of this weird ass love story between a man who enjoys the company of a race of cruel brutes who resemble in character the slobering tentacled aliens of The Simpsons and a woman who has decided to remain pregnant for 40 years keeping that man's child in a state of suspended animation.
As Culture stories go this one is about the ship Minds, what they say to each other and what they do when they encounter the unfathomable. It's somewhat all over the place, but still recommended.
On the whole however, Excession is a very good story, a weird ass love story, a fairly decent alien story and an excellent introduction to how machine intelligences might work. Impossible to do in a movie, this one. Something of an absolute necessity in understanding the Culture and how Minds work together or separate, with some still unrealized questions about how exactly it is the Minds regard humans - symbionts? pets? masters?
Well, actually I shouldn't say that, because one of the major motivations of a major character in the book, the Eccentric ship Sleeper Service is to make amends for a decision that lead to the catastrophic injury to a man and the psychological trauma of a woman whe were once lovers. As part of this weird ass love story between a man who enjoys the company of a race of cruel brutes who resemble in character the slobering tentacled aliens of The Simpsons and a woman who has decided to remain pregnant for 40 years keeping that man's child in a state of suspended animation.
As Culture stories go this one is about the ship Minds, what they say to each other and what they do when they encounter the unfathomable. It's somewhat all over the place, but still recommended.
October 3, 2020
Hmmm.... Big picture: Least favorite Culture installment so far for me.
The only remaining question is whether it so soured me on the series that I throw in the towel.
To be clear, plenty of amusing flourishes and tidbits and nuggets throughout, but ... just too ... too ... too much ... too cute by half? ... too many pages (not justified by the whole) .... too many voices (to weave together into a cohesive tapestry) .... too many fonts (in a trade paperback, no less) ... too many digressions ... too many where is this going? moments without sufficient return on investment or ultimate payoff.... too much struggle without corresponding gratification.... too much...
This took me an inordinately long time to read, because I found it very easy to put down (and increasingly hard to pick up). I considered abandoning it altogether, and I can't say with confidence that I made the right choice in sticking with it.
Lots of folks seemed to enjoy it. So count me in the minority. This one simply didn't speak to me.
The only remaining question is whether it so soured me on the series that I throw in the towel.
To be clear, plenty of amusing flourishes and tidbits and nuggets throughout, but ... just too ... too ... too much ... too cute by half? ... too many pages (not justified by the whole) .... too many voices (to weave together into a cohesive tapestry) .... too many fonts (in a trade paperback, no less) ... too many digressions ... too many where is this going? moments without sufficient return on investment or ultimate payoff.... too much struggle without corresponding gratification.... too much...
This took me an inordinately long time to read, because I found it very easy to put down (and increasingly hard to pick up). I considered abandoning it altogether, and I can't say with confidence that I made the right choice in sticking with it.
Lots of folks seemed to enjoy it. So count me in the minority. This one simply didn't speak to me.
March 29, 2018
8.5/10
After five years time-off from the Culture universe, taking the time to develop ideas and stories and in other novels, Iain M. Banks returns with Excession, the fifth following installment in the series, with a story of grand scope and imagination; a space opera that takes us deep into the unknown of the galaxy - revealing wonders and dimensions through its vastness - but also into an epic adventure of conspiracy and war, paranoia and cruelty, and love and betrayal, using his scientifically plausible descriptions to leave us nothing more but simply lost with awe.
In the vast emptiness of the galaxy, from its creation to its continuously growth, the society of the Culture has traveled to new, unexplored wonders; wonders which, through their desire to explore their limits and their secrets - and consequently to appease their irresistible curiosity - has brought them to the forefront of many interstellar worlds and civilizations - and Byr Genar-Hofoen, as an ambassador in the God’shole habitat of the Affront - an increasingly in power alien species - his part of the job is to lay the foundations that will bring a long and reciprocal relationship between the two civilizations.
Far away, however, in the Esperi system - after two and a half thousand years of disappearance - an artifact has appeared again, causing questions long left unanswered, and when he gets assigned to find the Eccentric ship Sleeper Service and the only person aboard it who managed to survive after an attempt to discover its mysteries - possessing information that might help them understand it - Genar-Hofoen will have to leave behind his easy life and embark on a quest to find this ship, its passenger and the answers it holds; an adventure that, as a long-forgotten past will emerge again, will put him amidst difficulties and dangers that, if he doesn’t overcome, could cost him all of what he has achieved so far.
Meanwhile, on Phage Rock, Ulver Seich - a famed scholastic overachiever at barely twenty-two years of age - spends her time breaking young hearts through her irresistible lusciousness, waiting for the day that will bring to its fulfillment her greatest dream: to join Special Circumstances and to travel throughout the galaxy.
But, when one day the drone Churt Lyne - her faithful follower and of her family - informs her of a coming message, asking her personally to take on a mission of utmost secrecy on Tier habitat - giving her the possibility, and the chance, to bring her dream to fruition - Ulver will find herself soon hunting a person that yesterday she hadn’t even heard of, bringing her into an adventure as she’d never had imagined that will change her life forever.
While Dajeil Gelian, self-exiled aboard the Eccentric ship Sleeper Service for forty years - trapped into her memories - when she encounters an old love she had tried to forget, she will be faced with her past but also with difficult choices that will prove critical for the future of hers and of her unborn child.
But now, with the ships’ Minds of the Culture trying very hard to understand its purpose and its potential, when this artifact becomes the focal point of the galaxy's attention - drawing the interest of alien species and sentient intelligences - it will reveal a deep conspiracy that will give reason for a new, great war; a conspiracy that, if they fail to put an end to it, may well threaten with the destruction not only Genar-Hofoen, Dajeil and Ulver, but even and every living organism and intelligence across the universe.
Consisting of twelve parts, with each one divided into shorter-length chapters, Iain M. Banks brings to Excession, the fourth novel in the Culture universe, a space opera of grand scope - reminding again the style of the first book, Consider Phlebas - but using multiple narratives and points of view for the development of the plot, giving a stronger feeling of complexity than before, and also bringing a large cast of characters - humanoids, aliens, drones and Minds - that create a tale of epic scale, proving of how greater level he had reached his writing and his imagination over the years.
And, through this book, Banks once again builds a story that travels us throughout the galaxy, showing us unknown worlds and civilizations, alien species and sentient intelligences, bringing to the forefront two new societies: the Zetetic Elench who, as once part of the Culture system, have different ideals from their brothers, wanting in the explorations towards the unknown not to try to change the others through their beliefs but to be changed by the others, adapting and developing their personalities day by day to something else; and the Affront, an increasing alien power, who - through its need to subjucate those who think inferior - raves into its brutality and its systematic sadism upon the weaker. Two societies that - compared to the Culture - show how widely opposite they are through their rules and their beliefs they live with.
Where, however, Banks excels most is in his protagonists as, giving the largest time of the book to the ships’ Minds - a side which he hadn’t developed again before - he takes us deep into the core of their existence and of their soul, revealing their inner wars and conflicts, their thoughts and reasons for their actions; actions that, acting as gods on behalf of their societies, bring through their irresistible need to understand this mysterious, unknown of origin artifact great consequences for them, their people, their worlds, and even the galaxy itself - a steep price that shows the huge impact of their curiosity and of the possibilities of the unknown.
All in all, Excession is a great book of many levels, with Iain M. Banks returning to the Culture universe with a story of grand scope, travels us through the galaxy into worlds and civilizations, and into alien species and sentient intelligences, but also and into an epic space opera adventure of conspiracies, wars and wonders of the unknown, showing through his great writing and imagination a deep, incredible vast universe of unknown possibilities.
Ελληνική κριτική:
After five years time-off from the Culture universe, taking the time to develop ideas and stories and in other novels, Iain M. Banks returns with Excession, the fifth following installment in the series, with a story of grand scope and imagination; a space opera that takes us deep into the unknown of the galaxy - revealing wonders and dimensions through its vastness - but also into an epic adventure of conspiracy and war, paranoia and cruelty, and love and betrayal, using his scientifically plausible descriptions to leave us nothing more but simply lost with awe.
In the vast emptiness of the galaxy, from its creation to its continuously growth, the society of the Culture has traveled to new, unexplored wonders; wonders which, through their desire to explore their limits and their secrets - and consequently to appease their irresistible curiosity - has brought them to the forefront of many interstellar worlds and civilizations - and Byr Genar-Hofoen, as an ambassador in the God’shole habitat of the Affront - an increasingly in power alien species - his part of the job is to lay the foundations that will bring a long and reciprocal relationship between the two civilizations.
Far away, however, in the Esperi system - after two and a half thousand years of disappearance - an artifact has appeared again, causing questions long left unanswered, and when he gets assigned to find the Eccentric ship Sleeper Service and the only person aboard it who managed to survive after an attempt to discover its mysteries - possessing information that might help them understand it - Genar-Hofoen will have to leave behind his easy life and embark on a quest to find this ship, its passenger and the answers it holds; an adventure that, as a long-forgotten past will emerge again, will put him amidst difficulties and dangers that, if he doesn’t overcome, could cost him all of what he has achieved so far.
Meanwhile, on Phage Rock, Ulver Seich - a famed scholastic overachiever at barely twenty-two years of age - spends her time breaking young hearts through her irresistible lusciousness, waiting for the day that will bring to its fulfillment her greatest dream: to join Special Circumstances and to travel throughout the galaxy.
But, when one day the drone Churt Lyne - her faithful follower and of her family - informs her of a coming message, asking her personally to take on a mission of utmost secrecy on Tier habitat - giving her the possibility, and the chance, to bring her dream to fruition - Ulver will find herself soon hunting a person that yesterday she hadn’t even heard of, bringing her into an adventure as she’d never had imagined that will change her life forever.
While Dajeil Gelian, self-exiled aboard the Eccentric ship Sleeper Service for forty years - trapped into her memories - when she encounters an old love she had tried to forget, she will be faced with her past but also with difficult choices that will prove critical for the future of hers and of her unborn child.
But now, with the ships’ Minds of the Culture trying very hard to understand its purpose and its potential, when this artifact becomes the focal point of the galaxy's attention - drawing the interest of alien species and sentient intelligences - it will reveal a deep conspiracy that will give reason for a new, great war; a conspiracy that, if they fail to put an end to it, may well threaten with the destruction not only Genar-Hofoen, Dajeil and Ulver, but even and every living organism and intelligence across the universe.
Consisting of twelve parts, with each one divided into shorter-length chapters, Iain M. Banks brings to Excession, the fourth novel in the Culture universe, a space opera of grand scope - reminding again the style of the first book, Consider Phlebas - but using multiple narratives and points of view for the development of the plot, giving a stronger feeling of complexity than before, and also bringing a large cast of characters - humanoids, aliens, drones and Minds - that create a tale of epic scale, proving of how greater level he had reached his writing and his imagination over the years.
And, through this book, Banks once again builds a story that travels us throughout the galaxy, showing us unknown worlds and civilizations, alien species and sentient intelligences, bringing to the forefront two new societies: the Zetetic Elench who, as once part of the Culture system, have different ideals from their brothers, wanting in the explorations towards the unknown not to try to change the others through their beliefs but to be changed by the others, adapting and developing their personalities day by day to something else; and the Affront, an increasing alien power, who - through its need to subjucate those who think inferior - raves into its brutality and its systematic sadism upon the weaker. Two societies that - compared to the Culture - show how widely opposite they are through their rules and their beliefs they live with.
Where, however, Banks excels most is in his protagonists as, giving the largest time of the book to the ships’ Minds - a side which he hadn’t developed again before - he takes us deep into the core of their existence and of their soul, revealing their inner wars and conflicts, their thoughts and reasons for their actions; actions that, acting as gods on behalf of their societies, bring through their irresistible need to understand this mysterious, unknown of origin artifact great consequences for them, their people, their worlds, and even the galaxy itself - a steep price that shows the huge impact of their curiosity and of the possibilities of the unknown.
All in all, Excession is a great book of many levels, with Iain M. Banks returning to the Culture universe with a story of grand scope, travels us through the galaxy into worlds and civilizations, and into alien species and sentient intelligences, but also and into an epic space opera adventure of conspiracies, wars and wonders of the unknown, showing through his great writing and imagination a deep, incredible vast universe of unknown possibilities.
Ελληνική κριτική:
June 30, 2011
Taking a break from reading dry-as-dust books for journal review, I asked a friend for fiction recommendations and was given two of Iain M. Banks' "Culture" novels: Look to Windward and this one, Excession.
I'd read two Culture novels and several short stories set in that far-future context prior to this, beginning with Use of Weapons and The Algebraist. I have found myself appreciating each one more than the last, presumably as the result of coming to feel ever more at home in the Culture.
This is not say that Banks is the perfect storyteller. His tales are long and generally involve multiple points of view, often nonhuman, often inorganic. Keeping track of the characters and locations can become difficult as few have familiar names. In the case of Excession much of the dialog is between Artificial Intelligences embodied in interstellar ships of various kinds, built by various species. Their conversations are often, but not always, accompanied by long lines of code extraneous to the meaning of what is communicated. This device distracts the reader from some of the most important--and funniest--dialog in the book, the information contained within being essential to the plot development. And here, in this book in particular, the plot is complex, involving as it does spies, conspiracies, secrets, dissimulation and outright lying. Unfortunately, because so many of the primary actors are shipboard AIs, few represented by physical avatars, they and their differences in character and motive are especially difficult to keep straight. The organic protagonists are, compared to them, while easier to track, basically pawns in a grand, cosmic game beyond their ken.
Indeed, the book as a whole is about limits: the limits of organic beings, individually and culturally; the limits of the Culture as representing the heights of sentient achievement; even the limits of the artificial intelligences which rule the Culture and command its ships.
I'd read two Culture novels and several short stories set in that far-future context prior to this, beginning with Use of Weapons and The Algebraist. I have found myself appreciating each one more than the last, presumably as the result of coming to feel ever more at home in the Culture.
This is not say that Banks is the perfect storyteller. His tales are long and generally involve multiple points of view, often nonhuman, often inorganic. Keeping track of the characters and locations can become difficult as few have familiar names. In the case of Excession much of the dialog is between Artificial Intelligences embodied in interstellar ships of various kinds, built by various species. Their conversations are often, but not always, accompanied by long lines of code extraneous to the meaning of what is communicated. This device distracts the reader from some of the most important--and funniest--dialog in the book, the information contained within being essential to the plot development. And here, in this book in particular, the plot is complex, involving as it does spies, conspiracies, secrets, dissimulation and outright lying. Unfortunately, because so many of the primary actors are shipboard AIs, few represented by physical avatars, they and their differences in character and motive are especially difficult to keep straight. The organic protagonists are, compared to them, while easier to track, basically pawns in a grand, cosmic game beyond their ken.
Indeed, the book as a whole is about limits: the limits of organic beings, individually and culturally; the limits of the Culture as representing the heights of sentient achievement; even the limits of the artificial intelligences which rule the Culture and command its ships.
April 27, 2013
First book of this spring's readathon! It took me ages to read, but it's well worth it. I think I'll take a little break now from the Culture: not only do I want to ration it out a bit, but there's a sameness to the cleverness at the heart of these novels, so that reading three in quick succession makes me more able to figure out the plot -- and I actually like feeling that Banks is smarter than me, so I'll give it a rest before my next one...
Anyway, I don't know how to talk about Excession, really. You spend an enormous amount of time in contact with the Minds, in this book, instead of with the human or humanoid members of the Culture, which is really interesting, especially coming after reading Use of Weapons and Consider Phlebas, where it's the other end of things. And the Excession itself is fascinating, and I like that Banks doesn't go too far into explaining it.
If you get bogged down in the details, of which there are many, Excession can be pretty confusing. There are dozens of ship-names to remember, some of them wry and funny, and all of them at any rate unconventional, and there's a fair number of biological lifeforms to keep your eyes on -- as well a conspiracy or two, just to keep you on your toes.
It's impossible, I think, to really model the way such intelligent beings would think. It's daring of Banks to actually write so close to the point of view of the Minds, and he pulls it off.
Anyway, I don't know how to talk about Excession, really. You spend an enormous amount of time in contact with the Minds, in this book, instead of with the human or humanoid members of the Culture, which is really interesting, especially coming after reading Use of Weapons and Consider Phlebas, where it's the other end of things. And the Excession itself is fascinating, and I like that Banks doesn't go too far into explaining it.
If you get bogged down in the details, of which there are many, Excession can be pretty confusing. There are dozens of ship-names to remember, some of them wry and funny, and all of them at any rate unconventional, and there's a fair number of biological lifeforms to keep your eyes on -- as well a conspiracy or two, just to keep you on your toes.
It's impossible, I think, to really model the way such intelligent beings would think. It's daring of Banks to actually write so close to the point of view of the Minds, and he pulls it off.
October 15, 2008
In this book a strange phenomenon is observed. The story revolves around how the Culture and it's neighbors try to deal with this particular event. Is it a weapon? Is it a message from a vastly superior race or culture? Is it a natural event? Add onto that tragic love stories, sadistic aliens, and revenge and you get one densely written, fantastically entertaining story.
This is quite possibly one of my all time favorite books. The conversations between the sentient ships alone could sustain me. The language is full of puns and clever words galore. I often reread their conversations multiple times and get new layers of meanings each time. And the names the ships choose for themselves make me laugh out loud every single time.
The action itself is confusing and very technical. Fortunately I love that kind of writing. This is hard scifi at its best. But if reading that kind of stuff is a chore for you avoid this book. However, if you like a book reading a book that requires concentration on multiple levels this is an excellent choice. I've read it three times now and will definitely read it many times more.
This is quite possibly one of my all time favorite books. The conversations between the sentient ships alone could sustain me. The language is full of puns and clever words galore. I often reread their conversations multiple times and get new layers of meanings each time. And the names the ships choose for themselves make me laugh out loud every single time.
The action itself is confusing and very technical. Fortunately I love that kind of writing. This is hard scifi at its best. But if reading that kind of stuff is a chore for you avoid this book. However, if you like a book reading a book that requires concentration on multiple levels this is an excellent choice. I've read it three times now and will definitely read it many times more.
January 27, 2018
[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.885.3553]
xEccentric Jamie
oLSV Goodreaders Everywhere
Another gem in Iain M. Banks' great tasting AND less filling Culture series!
Part of what makes these standout, and this one in particular, is the oft whimsical exchanges amongst the Culture's sentient AI's (in the form of ship Minds, drones, etc) and human citizens.
In Excession, we get some juicy, behind the scenes peeks into the wheelings and dealings of the Culture's Minds as they deal with a BDO and ensuing galactic conflict and chaos, as well as some good bits of the Culture's early history and formation.
My (and the generally accepted) fave in the series remains The Player of Games, but Excession sheds a lot more light on the inner workings of the Culture than prior books, and made this a fascinating read, in and of itself.
xEccentric Jamie
oLSV Goodreaders Everywhere
Another gem in Iain M. Banks' great tasting AND less filling Culture series!
Part of what makes these standout, and this one in particular, is the oft whimsical exchanges amongst the Culture's sentient AI's (in the form of ship Minds, drones, etc) and human citizens.
In Excession, we get some juicy, behind the scenes peeks into the wheelings and dealings of the Culture's Minds as they deal with a BDO and ensuing galactic conflict and chaos, as well as some good bits of the Culture's early history and formation.
My (and the generally accepted) fave in the series remains The Player of Games, but Excession sheds a lot more light on the inner workings of the Culture than prior books, and made this a fascinating read, in and of itself.
March 1, 2019
The thing with Iain Bank's Culture series of science-fiction books is their quasi-pseudo-sometimes humorous details. This is the fifth one I have read, released originally in 1996 (I do not read that fast, honestly) and Excession probably is one of the most deepest, confusing and complex novels I have ever encountered from him, and that also includes his more contemporary works as well. I started reading him in the very early 1990's (starting with the seminal Wasp Factory), and over the years I slowly got through his massive body of work. I set myself a task after he died that I would read all of, both the Sci-Fi and more contemporary works. His passing was such as shame, and one thing I have never forgave myself for was when he did a signing here where I live in Chepstow. I missed that, and that upsets me greatly.
Excession: Think of 2001 by Arthur C Clarke and the black monolith that the book deals with. In the Culture an Excession is an anomaly, unexplainable and of great curiosity to the Culture, so there are some similarities with the two books. It is an incredibly confusing book, weighing in at over 450 pages, with many different characters, different time spans, some really obscure space-ship names (Iain did have a massive imagination), different sub plots and plots within plots and so on. I found it became quite heavy towards the final conclusion (of what the Excession actually was), but the writing is impeccable, character development is pretty good (albeit confusing to work out who is who, even more so towards the end) - all of these aspects of the novel one would expect from the abstract mind of the late Iain Banks. I do recommend if you want your brain to be challenged and are into Sci-Fi, and the thing with the Culture series of novels is that they are essentially all stand-alone, so you do not need to have to have read them in any particular order, so that is a positive aspect about the series. If you want your mind to be completely overworked, and are into Sci-Fi and abstractions, then give it a go. I think the best aspect were the names of the Space-Ships. That was a really unique invention coming from the author. Sometimes quite humorous too. I will give it a 4, mainly because of the entirely confusing ending. Still thinking about it now.
Excession: Think of 2001 by Arthur C Clarke and the black monolith that the book deals with. In the Culture an Excession is an anomaly, unexplainable and of great curiosity to the Culture, so there are some similarities with the two books. It is an incredibly confusing book, weighing in at over 450 pages, with many different characters, different time spans, some really obscure space-ship names (Iain did have a massive imagination), different sub plots and plots within plots and so on. I found it became quite heavy towards the final conclusion (of what the Excession actually was), but the writing is impeccable, character development is pretty good (albeit confusing to work out who is who, even more so towards the end) - all of these aspects of the novel one would expect from the abstract mind of the late Iain Banks. I do recommend if you want your brain to be challenged and are into Sci-Fi, and the thing with the Culture series of novels is that they are essentially all stand-alone, so you do not need to have to have read them in any particular order, so that is a positive aspect about the series. If you want your mind to be completely overworked, and are into Sci-Fi and abstractions, then give it a go. I think the best aspect were the names of the Space-Ships. That was a really unique invention coming from the author. Sometimes quite humorous too. I will give it a 4, mainly because of the entirely confusing ending. Still thinking about it now.
October 19, 2013
The problem with getting older and facing mortality is that you realize you won't be able to read all the books you want to. I love the Culture books so much that I'd love to reread them in the order written. One of the reasons being a desire to track the Minds through the series, do any reappear?
The most appealing aspect of Excession is that it's pretty the Minds, with the humans and a new alien species on the sidelines, altho they are part of the plot. I love the Minds! The names they choose are so entertaining, and I want to come up with my own name. In spite of their hyper intelligence they have distinct personalities and agendas. And here we even have a conspiracy within a conspiracy between the Minds!
Now that's part of the problem with this book, with so many minds around and only a few really distinctive I found it hard to keep track of who was in which conspiracy. Plus the humans and the alien species all had severe character flaws.
Is it possible to fall in love with a Mind? I found Sleeper Service to be entirely love worthy! And Mind's avatars can have sex! I wonder what that's like?
The actual excession of the title remains somewhat a myster at the end, but I don't mind that, I am left conjecturing.
I feel blessed to have had another Culture novel I hadn't read after one of my favorite authors died. *sob* Thank you Mr. Banks for the pleasure you have given me on numerous occasions. I think I still have one more I haven't read.
The most appealing aspect of Excession is that it's pretty the Minds, with the humans and a new alien species on the sidelines, altho they are part of the plot. I love the Minds! The names they choose are so entertaining, and I want to come up with my own name. In spite of their hyper intelligence they have distinct personalities and agendas. And here we even have a conspiracy within a conspiracy between the Minds!
Now that's part of the problem with this book, with so many minds around and only a few really distinctive I found it hard to keep track of who was in which conspiracy. Plus the humans and the alien species all had severe character flaws.
Is it possible to fall in love with a Mind? I found Sleeper Service to be entirely love worthy! And Mind's avatars can have sex! I wonder what that's like?
The actual excession of the title remains somewhat a myster at the end, but I don't mind that, I am left conjecturing.
I feel blessed to have had another Culture novel I hadn't read after one of my favorite authors died. *sob* Thank you Mr. Banks for the pleasure you have given me on numerous occasions. I think I still have one more I haven't read.
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