Customer Reviews

Excession

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Reading your first Iain Banks novel is like nothing else in literature. It's a little like being in the washing machine on spin cycle. You emerge dizzy but refreshed. Machine gun pacing, vivid characterization, universe-spanning cultures and, of course, The Culture. Smug, self-satisfied, hedonistic and vain, The Culture is also bifurcated between more-or-less humankind and Minds, advanced AI's that are not always tolerant of their "meat-based" co-citizens.

More than any other novel of The Culture, this one involves those Minds and, without spoilers, they turn out to be human, all too human. Banks handles very well the problem of writing dialog for beings who are far, far more intelligent and think millions of times faster than we do. As others have noted, it sometimes makes for dense reading, but it is very believable. In some ways, this is a novel about the psychology and motives of Minds.

As always, Banks laces the story with sly humor, word play and wholly believable aliens. The Affront, the most conspicuous aliens in this tale, are a wonderful invention. As always, the structure of the novel itself with its interlacing of different story lines and physical organization is a part of the story itself, although less obviously so than in the earlier _Consider Phlebas_.

The Excession of the title is the focus of the attention of most of the characters in the story, but Banks is far too gifted a writer to make it the whole story. Readers who complain about the ending may be missing Banks' most important point. Perhaps the story isn't so much about the Excession, but how the characters react to the Excession. And maybe the ending is Banks' way of underscoring that point.

As always with Banks' stories of The Culture, there is moral ambiguity and it's impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys. For my taste, that's a lot more "real" than the moral absolutes of space operas in the tradition of E.E. "Doc" Smith.

An excellent, rollicking adventure, full of surprises, laughs and sly irony. Densely written but highly readable. Much more mature than earlier Culture novels. Highly recommended.

On vacation, at an idyllic Thailand beach resort with an unexpected library, I got hooked on Iain Banks. It was this book that did it. As the other reviewers say, it's a tad long (i.e. perfect for long holidays and vacations.) And sure, the story does become tangled at times. But it's unbelievably creative and screamingly funny in a sarcastic and cynical way. Think "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" on growth hormones. (If one is looking for "hard" science fiction, however, this is likely not your book.)

I would buy the book if only to have the complete listing of all the names Banks employs for his glib and sentient starships. These are a catalog of odd-ball word pairings and acidic aphorisms. My favorites - "Ethics Gradient" and "Fate Amenable to Change."

Throughout Excessions, Banks's writing is persistantly imaginitive, heading off in unexpected directions, creating a novel sweeping universe; and frankly is everything I hope for in science fiction. My only complaint is that after reading this book I bought 9 or 10 more books by Banks, and I found none provided the enjoyment that this one did. While the other books are all excellent, they did not bowl me over. Is that because everything else was not as good, or that a reader tends to favor the first thing he reads of a wonderful writer? Judging from the range of responses from other reviewers as to "the best" Bank's book - I am leaning towards the latter.

Most Iain Banks books are challenging reads, it's a credit to the man that he refuses to write down because he's penning SF novels and not the higher profile "literary" stuff that most of the mainstream probably recognizes him for (is he well read in this country, nobody I know has heard of him . . . what's with that?) so what you basically get with the Culture novels is SF from someone who really knows how to write and doesn't just have a degree and feels the need to share this nifty cool idea he had the other day. This book is full of cool ideas but more importantly it's a dense and slightly elusive work . . . while it's not opaque stuff isn't spelled out explicitly for the reader, there are a lot of dots to connect here. The setup is a large object has appeared from literally nowhere and interacts with the energy grip in a way that is supposed to be impossible. But this isn't the first time this object appeared and the only person who is around from that last appearance is Stored in a ship and has to be convinced to come out. That's how the plot starts. Where it ends is somewhere totally different and if sometimes you think you're reading a totally different book, that's just par for the course with Banks. The focus this time around is more on the Minds in the ships, which is good and bad. The Minds are basically human and their rapid fire conversations that take up a large chunk of the book are highly entertaining . . . however it can be daunting for readers unable to keep track of the dozens of names, especially with little strong personality to back up the Mind and make an impression. You may wish for a recap box at some point to make sure you're still up to speed. Still astute readers are rewarded with a plot that twists almost dizzingly . . . I've read a few Banks books by now and he still amazes how he manages to turn everything upside down so quickly. The action is good, the dialogue between ships crackles, the plot is mind bending and the last page deserves to be read over and over again. I can't say this is his best work, but like all his other stuff the quality is high and if new readers have the stamina, they'll find themselves pleasantly delighted.

To keep themselves amused, the super-AIs known as Minds in Iain M Banks's science fiction universe spend their time runing galaxy-sized simulations, a world of make-believe and might-have-been the Minds call the Land of Infinite Fun.

"Excession" is a bit like spending a few hours in Mr Banks's own Land of Infinite Fun; outlandish, amusing, intriguing, but never quite involving enought to let you forget that it's all just make-believe. Po-faced it certainly is not, it's space opera with a wink and a smile, gently tapping on the fourth wall but never quite breaking it.

"Excession" is the fourth book set in Mr Banks's Culture universe. This universe features technology as ahead of own our as the iPod is to the clay tablet, technology taken to its ultimate extreme, capable of building anything, anywhere, in any quantity desired. As a result, the biological inhabitants have long since given control of space ships and habitats (nobody's so old-fashioned as to live on an actual planet) and pretty much everything else to the Minds, a bunch of computers as pompous as Deep Thought, as twiggy as HAL and as serious as a whoopy cushion at a Shriner convention. They are the perfect security blanket for the cosseted inhabitants of the Culture. Together, they can out-think and out-fight anything the galaxy can throw at them.

Anything? Well, almost anything. The word "excession" you see, means something beyond a civilization's ability to understand, or resist should it prove hostile. The Aztecs would understand the concept. The Culture, as luck would have it, may have discovered an Excession, in the form of an impenetrable black globe which may serve as a link to other universes. As an added complication, it's also rather close to a warlike race called the Affront.

Mr Banks plugs us into the machinations of the Minds, as they struggle to respond to the challenges posed both by the Excession and the Affront, not to mention a cabal-within-a-cabal of rogue Minds with an agenda of their own.

It's not all a meeting of Minds, though they hog the limelight and all the best lines. There's also Genar-Hofoen, a rake in the Clark Gable mould, currently serving as an ambassador to the thuggish frat-boy Affront. Somewhere in his closet, with all his other skeletons, is his ex-lover Dajeil Gelian, now a recluse on board a highly eccentric ship called the Sleeper Service.

The Minds have a job for Genar-Hofoen, though it might be pure stratagem. Tricky chaps, AIs. Just ask David Bowman. Are they trying to stop a war over the Excession, or start one?

The mysteries emerge into clearer resolution somewhat haphazardly, as we flicker randomly back and forth between Genar-Hofoen, Dajeil, and the Minds. The plot is mere subroutine, never the main program. The history between Genar-Hofoen and Dajeil, for example, is revealed in flashback info-dumps, and does not resolve so much as suddenly stop, blue-screened by other events around the Excession.
It's never a terribly compelling story, but then it's always fun to watch Mr Banks at play in his universe.

Mostly, you see, the novel is an exploration of the imaginative universe M Banks has created for us. What do supercomputers do for fun? What would post-humans do for religion? What would families be like if you could change your sex anytime you wanted? You get the feeling Mr Banks would rather answer these questions than attend to his sprawling story. It's a nice reminder that while American scifi has the best gadgets, it's the Brits that have the most fun. The overall structure of may suffer as a result, may get a little buggy, but the result is priceless.

It's not quite Infinite Fun, but you don't have to have a brain the size of a planet to enjoy plugging into Mr Banks's universe.

Except for Star Wars, I'm never been much into sci-fi. I bought Excession partly on the strength of Banks' 'straight' fiction (especially The Wasp Factory), but mostly because it was the only English language book on the shelves of the Venetian bookshop in which I found it. The outward signs were not good: the edition I purchased is illustrated with one of those ghastly airbrushed spaceships favoured by the direst of pulp sci-fi publishers. But one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Nor did I have foreknowledge of Bank's "Culture", the parallel universe he has developed for his science fiction titles, a potential handicap given this is about the fifth in the series. It turned out not to matter.

Excession had me from the start. This is proper literature which, as such, leaves Arthur C Clarke and E E "Doc" Smith for dead. The ideas in it are out of Clarke's league, too. There's something cinematic about the narrative, cutting and diving between figures and dialogues (the communications between the ships are especially fascinating) as Banks unravels, surely and deliberately, the plot. It's challenging - not a word in the 451 pages is wasted, and you can not afford to casually flick through a couple of pages. Fortunately, you never feel the need to. Readers of his straight fiction will know Banks' particular gift for story telling: it is put to even better use here. After fifty pages you know you're in the hands of a master - a fine, wicked, playful master at that.

Banks' only concession to the genre is to give his humanoid characters silly names, such as Dajeil Gelian and (& I'm not kidding) Sikleyr-Najasa Croepice Ince Stahl da Mapin. Knowing Banks' style, however, this is probably some sort of in-joke that I don't get, so the laugh's most likely on me for missing it. His spaceships, which are delightfully sentient, all get terrific names, on the other hand, such as The Problem Child and Fate Amenable to Change. Cool. Great book - ideal holiday reading; excellent for a 15 hour ferry trips from Bari to Igoumenitsa.

Another of Banks' Culture novels, this one languished on my to-be-read shelf for a couple of years. Since Banks writes about a book a year, if one does not keep reading him steadily, it is easy to fall behind (as opposed to, say, Howard Waldrop).

I'm a fan of Banks mainly for his easy, breezy style and the modernist trappings of his characters. Yes, he writes space opera (when he writes SF), but this is no Star Wars--the characters are never so easily swept into categories of good and evil, nor can the science be so easily removed from the plot to reveal a western in space. A Culture novel would not be filmable, although it would be interesting to see someone try.

The title refers to a spatial anomaly that threatens to change the universe. It is big and spherical and obviously not a part of the "normal" universe, so it triggers the machinations of several conspiracies (what the Culture's Minds are best at) and a new war between the Culture and the aggressive Affront. The usual cast is there under different names: an independent human male envoy for Contact, a wronged woman, a spunky girl, some old and patient Drones, and some devious Minds. The Affront are interesting as foils to the utopian leanings of the Culture (I think I remember Banks saying that the reason he created the Culture as a utopian society was to show just how inherently unstable such a thing was).

This one jumps around a lot, switching various storylines so often that it is difficult to keep everything straight in your head, especially if you read this over multiple days. Don't. Read it in one sitting for the pure pleasure of it.

Iain Banks can be an intimidating writer. His command of the language and a wonderful imagination combined with a penchant for being unconventional leads to very complex plots, unusual prose styles and flat out great books.

_Excession_ is one of his Culture books, possibly his best. As is typical, there are multiple plots and protagonists but the great AI ships (Minds) play a larger role in this book than any of the others. An unusual object appears in space and touches off a race to claim it between the Culture and others (not specfied so as not to be a spoiler) resulting in some wonderfully complex situations featuring wonderfully deep and fleshed out characters. This book will have you wincing on page and laughing the next, which brings a welcome realness to the hard science fiction genre.

But with this excellence comes a warning: If you tend to skim books or not really pay attention, you may not like Banks in general and _Excession_ specifically. The prose is very dense, with important details tossed off in small sentences that caused to be stop and reread sections more than once. I heartily recommend all of Banks' work and urge the reader to give it the time and care it deserves.

When expecting a Banks' sci-fi book, expect only excellence.
When expecting a Banks' "Culture" book, expect seven things:
1) war, weapons, death and destruction
2) glanding different sensations to alter reality
3) drones with smart mouths, attitudes and a cunning wit
4) knife missiles slicing through baddie targets
5) quirky aliens in and out of the Culture
6) dark, grim gory scenes that will leave you cringing
7) Minds and their space vessels

Here's the breakdown of this Culture novel:
1) War breaks out between the Affront and the Culture, but there was little death and destruction. One or two deaths were satisfying enough.
2) Glanding different sensations to alter brain chemistry was prevalent throughout the book. It played no key role, but it was remarked upon enough.
3) Three of four drones made an appearance here. None of them were over the top scene catchers, but one drone did have a few choice words to say.
4) Sadly, no knife missiles were used.
5) The Affront species was humorous to read about. They seem like a hearty species to be mixed with, as long as you're not their dinner or hunting game.
6) I very much like the gritty scenes in Banks' novels, especially the island scene in Consider Phlebas. Excession had two gritty scenes (one with a death and one with grisly injury). Not up to par.
7) There were more Minds in this Culture book than any other Culture novel I have yet to read. It was bordering on mind-boggling, but the story cleared up towards the end. Reading the conversations between Minds was extremely interesting to experience (especially the Eccentric Minds).

Not all categories were up to par, but between the greatness of witnessing the Affront and the Minds. Well played out.

Banks is easily the best science-fiction author to be repeatedly stiffed for its major awards, which makes no sense to me considering some of the mediocrities that have been so rewarded (David Brin, Orson Scott Card). As always, pay close attention or else, because Mr. Banks never panders to his readers. His books are dense, ambiguous, and laced with irony, and Excession is no exception to that rule. This is one of his more playful books, however, especially in the wordplay between the various Culture Minds who constitute the novel's main characters. Though Banks's Culture books need not be read in any particular order, I would not recommend this as an introduction to his universe-start instead with Player of Games or Consider Phlebas (if you can find them). Excession is best read in a few sittings-say, a nice weekend at the beach. Stretching it out over a period of weeks may cause one to lose track of the nuances, which are typically plentiful and worth catching.

I am fascinated by the imagination and style of Iain Banks and I found his "The Bridge" extraordinary.

"Excession" was confusing and a bit tedious to wade through.

I very much liked his portrayal of the alien Affronter race and of the "Minds" of the starships, but the plot barely held me and rather petered out at the end.

It is helpful for the reader to know that the curious conversations presented in reduced bold type are taking place between the artificial intelligent minds of the conscious starships.

I have several more Banks novels on my night stand and I hope that they prove less formidable and more intriguing.