Banks, Ian M.
EXCESSION
Iain M. Banks
Bantam Spectra 1996/98
Pb 499 pages
ISBN # 0-553-57537-6
This book is weird/bizarre. Sometimes funny and occasionally gross, it is strange and confusing ... and has a delightful ending. If you like Twilight Zone, the works of David Brin, and/or Dan Simmons, you might also enjoy Iain Banks' Culture stories.
Excession returns to Banks' far future where Earth is no longer a memory, where traveling between planets is not only possible but a part of everyday life. Excession is set five-hundred years after the Idiran war. The Culture won and is just as hedonistic as ever. Their new problem is a race called the Affront. The Affront are large and strong multilimbed creatures that breathe an atmosphere so different that humans have to wear a protection suit while around them--that is if they dare go into their presence at all. Affront are, well, not quite tamed even though they are classified as civilized. [It's not unheard of for them to make a meal out of their dinner guests. Ah, in fact, it's pretty common.] The Affront would like nothing better than a chance to take over the Culture. And they get that chance.
Enter Excession, the term the Culture applies to any and all Outside Context Problems. And Oh! this one's big. Something has appeared out by the sun Esperi, something so strange that it is hypothesisized to be from another universe. Is it a prize? Or a danger? So, while the Affront takes and mobilizes a secret store of supposed hidden Culture warships in an attempt to take this prize, the Interesting Times Gang moves in to handle things their own way. Sentient starships are Banks' specialty [I love these names: Serious Callers Only, Gray Area, Peace Makes Plenty, Break Even, Shoot Them Later, Not Invented Here, Jaundiced Outlook, Steely Glint, Killing Time, and The Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival; not to mention the hero-ship of the story--Sleeper Service--only to mention a few]. Though these ships are manned, the Minds of each ship can have the final say because they are quite old, quite intelligent, and make excellent partners in the conquest of space. The Interesting Times Gang is a clique of wise old parent ships that feel compelled to manage things without their crew's consent. This is where the book gets somewhat confusing, because all those ships sound the same at first (though by the end, each one is defined by it's own subtle ploys). But add to that confusion, a section of the book where our main human character is male, except in every-other chapter where he is female. Twilight Zone! [Come to find out they were flashbacks to a time when he really had been female! --the possibilities in the Culture are endless, and changing one's form is one of those possibilities.]
Byr Genar-Hofoen is the human ambassador to the Affront because he loves their way of life so much that he is now considering changing himself into an Affront. But that will have to wait. The Culture's Special Circumstances Section needs him to go to the General Systems Vehicle Sleeper Service and revive a "stored soul" there who might have some relevant information the Culture needs to confront this Outside Context Problem out by Esperi. Well, that's what the Special Circumstances Section tells him, though there's another scheme afoot (several, actually).
The Sleeper Service is an "Eccentric Mind." It plays with stored humans like they were toy models, posing the frozen forms into historical museum dramas. It has an avatar for speaking to its one human passenger who travels awake, though she has been pregnant for forty years with Byr Genar-Hofoen's baby. The Sleeper Service is up to more than just playing with drama. Half way through the book, this Mind dumps its load of stored souls at a near-by planet, all except the pregnant woman and a bird that has been spying on the Sleeper by sending out encoded messages on revived passengers in the form of bird-dung. The Sleeper then moves through the galaxy faster than anything on record, and produces a massive fleet (from within its enormous bays) of warships when it reaches Esperi. The Excession is a conundrum. Its behavior is so erratic the Minds aren't even sure how to deal with it. And when it begins expanding as fast as a Big Bang, even the Sleeper is terrified. Is this the end of everything?
This book is recommended for hard science-fiction fans who want a deep experience with a fantastic ending. Excession is not an easy read--but it's worth it. I would rate it a solid nine (on a scale with ten at the top).
Return to Reviews