Second Breakfast

Iain Banks I think is my favorite science fiction genre author writing today.  Ask me some other time and I’m sure I’ll change my mind, but Banks is very fine writer, and his books are in the set of fiction titles I’ll re-read with some regularity.

Much of Banks’ sci-fi stories and novels are set in the universe of the Culture, which is a future group-civilization which includes us humans, along with seven or eight other humanoid species.  The important features of the Culture include is rather utopian perspective and lifestyle, faster-than-light travel (in Excession, much faster than light in one instance), very large space vessels, and the rather significant presence (and perhaps dominance) of artificial intelligence.  The large capital ships of the Culture are operated by super-sentient computers termed Minds, and humans and other humanoids live mostly on Orbitals, very large ring-shaped space habitats.

Excession follows the events that occur after the discovery of a very powerful, impossibly ancient, and definitely anomalous artifact hinting at enormous power and technological ability.  This excites the interest of Special Circumstances, the Culture’s “MI-6″ organization, as well as the interest of the Affront, another space-faring species whose cheerful brutality appalls the sensibilities of the more refined Culture.  Eventually a race is on to determine who will control the artifact and undercover its meaning.

What works well about Excession is that its protagonists are mostly the sentient Minds, and there is a great sense of humor and irony throughout Banks’ writing.  We get a lot of insight into Banks’ ideas about humanity through his machines.

Look to Windward is a bit more of melancholy book, and focuses on the results of the Culture’s meddling in the affairs of other species (there is no Prime Directive in Banks’ universe), and the very personal costs of war.  The Chelgrians, after the Culture’s unsuccessful intervention in their affairs, descends in the caste and civil war, which only ends after five billion Chelgrians are killed.  Some time later, a faction plots revenge against the Culture and a Chelgrian composer now living in exile.

The book follows Major Qulian, who is intended to be the perpretator of this revenge, but who is unaware of exactly what his mission is, and the story unfolds as he recovers his memories of his wife’s death, his recovery from his own wounds suffered during the war, and his actual mission.  His story is paired with the Mind controlling the Masiq orbital where Quilan is trying to meet Ziller, the composer.  The Mind was once the Mind of the GSV Lasting Damage, whose involvement in the war the Culture fought with another species, the Idirans serves as the ultimate background for this book.

This is a complex and multi-layered novel, and I enjoyed Banks’ nuanced characters.