IAIN M. BANKS is widely considered one of the most important writers of fiction of the past 20 years. Although he is probably better known for the dark, Gothic style fantasy of The Wasp Factory and The Bridge, he has also made a significant contribution to science fiction writing since his first science fiction novel, Consider Phlebas (1987). With Excession, Banks returns to the universe of The Culture for the first time in six years. This latest offering will delight those readers familiar with Banks's science fiction.
The Culture is a resolutely hedonistic society, with little apparent governmental structure. The only organisational branches of The Culture are "Contact" and "Special Circumstances", and this evidences the twin driving forces underlying The Culture expansion, and self preservation. To date, Banks's stories set in this universe have focused on the interaction between The Culture and outside, lower case, cultures.
Into this environment comes the Excession, an enigmatic, seemingly invulnerable entity. This is seen by some Minds in The Culture as an Outside Context Problem, i.e., a problem that could prove to be terminal if handled badly. This books tells of the reaction of The Culture to the arrival of an entity that could be a potential enemy of massive proportions, or alternatively an immensely powerful weapon which could fall into an enemy's hands, under the control of unreliable and ruthless allies.
One of the strengths and distinguishing features of Banks's science fiction is that he eschews the easy option of dividing his protagonists between historical notions of good and evil. His work is more complex and subtle. This enables him to present the Excession as a more subtle and dangerous threat to the fabric of The Culture. The denizens of The Culture now find that perhaps they have been "good" because they have never had to make a choice between that and anything else. Now they find that they are "prepared to cheat and lie and scheme and plot like any bloody, tyrant".
The Culture is a ship based society in which Artificial Intelligence has developed to an extraordinary level. Thus the protagonists are both machine and biological. Banks does not succumb to the temptation to make his machine protagonists into caricatures. Indeed, they are the more rounded characters in the story, displaying both virtues and vices. The biological characters are the by product of this pleasure seeking society and are often impetuous, intolerant, promiscuous and disillusioned. The machine and biological characters are more credible than they would be if divided into stereotypical hero or villain roles.
The book is written in a narrative vein with flashbacks used to acquaint the reader with the main characters. These flashbacks also contribute to the final understanding of the story. The juxtaposition of plot developing narrative and intense, innovative flashbacks results in a text that is emotive and never dull.
This is a sophisticated imaginative tale written in Banks's inimitable style. I suddenly found myself immersed in a dense and turbulent plot of intrigue, suspicion and betrayal. To those readers already familiar with Banks's other Culture novels, this will be a welcome return to an exciting, complex universe, but a book as intelligently and compellingly written as this could not be perceived as of genre interest only. It will appeal to any reader who enjoys a powerfully and colourfully written story that is often exciting and always intense.
