Excession by Iain Banks

[samvara]

Science fiction, part of the Culture series and methinks one best approached via the first three books. Big and complex; this ties in a massively complex plot focussed on the nature of the universe, with a love affair gone bad and its 40 year consequences. I suspect you have to have a certain type of patience to read this happily as the threads take ages to come together. I think this novel’s strength is less in the overall plot, than in what it says about the characters involved. I love it for focussing on the giant Minds (AIs) and their complex philosophising. I love that they are simultaneously incredibly advanced and just as creepy, manipulative and self-reflective as everyone else.

Comments

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

It's definitely my favourite of the the Culture series, but yes, I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to that particular universe.

The intrigue and backstabbery amongst the Minds really makes it for me. High time I read it again.

[linbot]

I love Excession. My friends and I discussed the ship names for hours. We'd never seen anything like them. Wonderful stuff.

And I think this is where I got one of my favourite lines about human evolution of culture: Most cultures encounter invading civilisations like sentences encounter full stops. Oh, and now I've looked it up, so the actual quote is:

An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.

Well worth a reread! And as I recall the ending was positively tame for a Banks book. :D

[samvara]

Loved it! And yes, the ship names fill me with happiness :)