Published in 1995, Feersum Endjinn is another terrific piece of literature from the mind of Iain M. Banks. Extreme creativity, whole cloth characters, re-imagining of several stock SF/Fantasy mythos and snappy dialog. Yet I finished it wondering if there was a sequel I had heard of, but no. I really enjoyed the read but there’s a reason I used the term literature in the first sentence, to me this book is a (successful) attempt by Banks to create a post-modern fiction. Post-modern in the JG Ballard/Thomas Pynchon sense, not a purely science fictional way.
Specifically, the book begins well into the second act and ends before any climax I could discern. Some of the action takes place in a Matrix-type world after one of the main characters is assassinated–once your body dies (enough time) you get up to eight more lives inside a computer world before merging into some kind of electronic group existence–and some takes place in post-human diaspora techno-feudal flesh society.
Except that the living can enter the Matrix too, though a connection embedded in their bodies just after birth or a very sensitive external gear for members of high ranking families, and at least some of the people can use this connectivity to see through others’ eyes and even control their bodies. It’s even possible (just for the still living, I think) to see back into the physical world after sending their conciousness through virtual space to a different location.
Then there are the sentient animals, birds, ants and made-up ones, some of whom carry virtual human minds and others who seem to be their own individual, each type present in both the virtual and physical realms.
The people left on this far future Earth are descendents of folk who chose to stay behind after the vast majority left to live in the stars. The primary remnant of their departure is the base of a huge space elevator, the top of which cannot be seen from the outside nor reached from the inside. There are really no more true scientists, though one key character is the Chief Scientist of the kingdom, and no engineers, though the kingdom is at some type of civil war with the Engineers.
Somehow I think Banks wants readers to believe that all of this takes place within that Matrix-like environment but, like Neo before he took the pill, somehow people are unaware of this.
recommended
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