Sometimes I can be so obtuse. Iain Banks with an M has been writing highly regarded science fiction since the late ’80s, and this has been known to me for most of that time, yet I always left his books on the store or library shelf. On the one hand this makes me sorry yet on the other happy since I now have nine SF novels to read in a burst and possibly even some of his non-genre efforts as well (he uses the middle initial M as the author credit for science fiction and none for ‘straight’ works).
Look to Windward, published in 2000, is a terrific piece of work. Set in his common far-future milieu where Humanity are one member of a Galactic-level post-Singularity society named The Culture, the story is fairly simple. A few years before the opening, another multi-stellar race based on the planet Chel had a terribly destructive civil war; several billion Chelgrians were killed and though life has returned almost to normal their most treasured composer, Ziller, has fled to a Culture world in disgust and one officer, Quilan, lost the will to live after his beloved wife and army squadmate was killed in a battle after he himself almost perished in an earlier action.
In this future, most races develop the ability to transcend to another level of existence fairly soon after creating FTL drives and nanotechnology though not all races or all members of a race choose to Sublime, as Banks calls it. For the most part those who remain in our plane of existence cannot communicate with those who doÂ?but there are exceptions and the Chelgrian-Pruen, the Chel Sublime, are one. Quilan is sent to Masaq Orbital, the constructed ringworld where Ziller lives, ostensibly to ask him to return home but this is just a cover for his real mission. Banks takes his time revealing it, though Ziller and other several characters suspect the officer plans to assassinate the composer.
Another widely-available technology in this future is the ability to back up one’s mind in case of accidental death (though has other uses too) and we learn at the start that Quilan’s backup device has been altered to host a second person, a higher ranking Chel officer named Huyler who will advise, comfort and in the event he cannot complete his mission, take control and substitute for him. Plus prevent Quilan from betraying the plot of course.
Some 800 years in the past, The Culture fought a vast, decades-long war against the Idirans and at the end caused two Suns to go nova. Those solar systems were not uninhabited. The light from those twin novae is now reaching Masaq Orbital and the tragedy will be memorialized with a massive concert and light show featuring a new symphony composed by Ziller.
Look to Windward, though suspenseful, is not a thriller where some members of The Culture are digging for clues to uncover or prevent the Chelgrian plot. Indeed, the biggest question actually surfaced in the story is whether Ziller or Quilan will attend the performance. While Ziller doubts the other intends to assassinate him, he obstinantly refuses to meet the Major and firmly states that only one of them can be present at it.
Banks is simply masterful at delivering a tangle of personalities and creating wondrous environs for them to be in. The book is over 400 pages and I felt like I was chewing them up as if on a woodland hike on a beautiful early Autumn afternoon. The author sometimes seemed to throw in entire scenes to showcase a constructed landscape as a favor to his fans, if that makes sense given this is the seventh or eigth Culture novel, but count me as one of them if he did.
Banks does appear, to my perhaps less than sophisticated eyes, to be drawing The Culture as a proxy for the foreign policy–and military might–of America and its Western European allies. Reading John Robb’s post Contra Barnett just before finishing this review made that clear for me, especially this bit he quoted from Bill Lind: “there is no surer way of making someone your enemy than to announce you will remake him in your image for his own good.” That’s precisely what The Culture did to the Chel.
definitely recommended
BillSaysThis 