Review of Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald

Ian McDonald’s 2004 River of Gods was a return to writing after a three year break.  Batteries obviously recharged, the novel won the British Science Fiction Award and was nominated for others.  The premise of the book so fertile in fact, 2009 saw the publishing of Cyberabad Days, a collection of short stories and one novella—a spillover of creative effort from the novel.  While a couple of the stories have the feel of a writer in the drawing room, trying out characters and angles for a larger work, most have been polished into more-than-presentable form.  The quality of the collection building to a crescendo, the three final stories are glittering examples of the power of sci-fi in short form.  Each set in the same India of 2047 as River of Gods, the following are my notes: 

A rather standard sci-fi foot on which to start the collection, “Sanjeev and Robotwallah” tells of a poor boy and the stars in his eyes for the war mechs that battle outside his village.  Possessing little of the flare that makes McDonald such a great prose stylist, the narrative is written in straight-forward fashion compared to Riverof Gods, but has a nice ending.

Review of "The State of the Art" by Iain M. Banks

The State of the Art is a collection of short fiction by Iain Banks written between’84 and ’87.  Surprisingly, it is the only such collection the author has published.  Given Banks’ fourteen mainstream novels and twelve sci-fi novels, one would expect a much larger output of short stories and novellas.  Continuing to defy expectation, all the stories in the collection (save one) are science fiction—the genre for which he is less known.  The following is a brief summary of the eight stories (three of which are Culture related).

“Road of Skulls” – Not a story in any conventional sense, the collection opens with the bickering of Mc9 and a companion whose name “he’d never bothered to find out” while they sit on the back of a cart being pulled over a road paved with enemy skulls.  A short, macabre tribute to storytelling.

Review of "Matter" by Iain M. Banks

Unlike many science fiction series which tend to work linearly, continuing the story lines of favorite characters book after book, Iain Banks’ Culture series has the benefit of being open to any variety of new characters, settings, and plots.  Like pieces of a pie, with each new Culture offering, more of the Banks’ universe is set before the reader.  Fresh tech, new AI personalities, and whole, previously unexplored corners of his galaxy are exposed in detail.  After six books and an eight year hiatus from the series, Banks returns in 2008 with Matter, proving there is still plenty more pie to be eaten.  

Matter is the story of the three Hausk siblings: the oldest Anaplian, the middle Ferbin, and the youngest, Oramen.  Born and raised on the middle level of an artificial planet structured like an onion (called Sursamen), life is not always easy.  Their quality of life existing at a state circa the US Civil War, steam power, rifles, and the telegraph are beginning to take shape, but battles are still largely fought with horse and sword.  After witnessing the murder of their father the king, Ferbin runs into exile and attempts to escape to the surface of Sursamen and ask their sponsor species for help in revenge.  Believing his father to have been killed in battle, Oramen, too young to take power, willingly allows the rebel tyl Loesp regency but soon finds himself evading assassination. 

Review of "Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds

Imagine a person, their heart set on a steak.  They go to the shop, buy a hunk of meat and throw it on the grill.  But just as the juices start sizzling, they decide they’re rather have a salad.  It’s a sunny day, why not something light.  But in the middle of cutting the lettuce, the sudden desire for tomato soup hits them, and out comes the big pot and garlic—no wait, dessert first…  And so on.  You now have the basic plot structure of Alastair Reynold’s 2005 Pushing Ice.  The ideas half-baked, a meal is never served.  Exposition on near-future tech, character feuds, cryogenics, FTL, a murder mystery, time shifts—each follow one on top of another but never congeal into a larger purpose.  What happened to plot?  What was my goal? Inter-character conflict or First Contact?  I’ve waded in so deep I  forget...  Oh well, I’ll just throw in some watermelon seeds with a space chase and see what happens…

I want to like Reynolds, I really do.  Similar to David Brin, Greg Egan, and Greg Bear, he’s an idea guy, and I like idea guys.  However, like Vernor Vinge he doesn’t have that natural touch of a writer or storyteller.  Chasm City and The Prefect hopefully not sucking Reynolds dry of talent, most of his works lack an adhesive, a glue—that writer-ly something—that ties a story together and gives it substance and impact.  But enough horseplay: what went wrong in Pushing Ice?

The book starts on firm footing.  It’s near future and mankind has developed the tech to reach and mine comets.  The ship Grasshopper has locked down another for drilling and blasting, when they receive a call from headquarters telling them that one of Saturn’s moons has come out of orbit and is now headed across our universe, pieces of ice sloughing off to expose a Death Star-esque superstructure beneath.  In amazingly ho-hum fashion, the Grasshopper, led by Captain Bella Lind, sets off in pursuit.  Ahh, space chase you say; I know what that is.  When Chief Engineer Svetlana finds suspicious data regarding the speed of Saturn’s “moon” and is rebutted reporting it to Captain Lind, you say: “I know that, too!  That’s called: character conflict!”  Unfortunately, from this point onward all sense of familiarity is lost—and not in a good way.  

Irregular and unnatural, the number of sub-plots and storylines Reynolds chooses to slap onto Pushing Ice amounts to a plate of spaghetti with ice cream and frogs legs.  Cryogenics, first contact, nano-forging, big dumb objects, alien linguistics, and other major sci-fi tropes take their turns, randomly occupying center stage.  If any of these devices were interwoven into plot or characterization to build toward a larger goal, then all would be understandable.  But that they work alone, discarded as necessary, leaves character and dialogue as disposable and wooden as can be.  Little coheres into an umbrella concept, the overall integrity of the novel suffering, as such.

For example, Reynolds fills multiple pages with characters figuring out the dials and buttons on a foreign space suit.  Is this knowledge later used for any of the characters’ benefit? No.  To spring a plot twist?  No.  Is it original, a space suit like no other writer of sci-fi has ever imagined?  No.  (It speaks English.)  Why then go into the detail?  As a result of this and many other useless digressions, the book is bloated with empty text that points to the fact the novel has no single driving purpose.  Is it a character examination?  A plot driven story?  A thought experiment on first contact?  Sadly, it is none.  

And the writing, well, let me be brief and give an example of how telling is so much worse than showing.  This is an actual sample from Pushing Ice:

            Bella thought about that for a few paces. “How long do you think that had been up there?”

            “How should I know?”

            “I was asking for your opinion, that’s all.”

            Christine’s defenses cracked.  She let out a quiet sigh, as if she had decided to finally stop being obstructive and there was a kind of relief in that.

That, my friends, is immature style; thanks for directly telling us the temper of Christine’s thoughts and working a major emotional change into a few words.  Suffice to say, good writers are more subtle.

A question remains: if dialogue and behavior cannot be counted on to portray character personality, what can?  Pop-culture references, of course.  T-shirt slogans and music files (all pre-21st century—a strange coincidence) are a device Reynolds uses to inform readers of his characters’ traits.  “I’ve got one nerve left and your standing on it.” is the slogan printed on Bella’s t-shirt at one point in the book.  On top of being extremely anachronistic (I mean, really; couldn’t Reynolds have had a touch more imagination to fill the media gap between now and the time the novel is set?  Take a look at Stand on Zanzibar or Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology if you want to see a writer imaginatively examining the possibilities for future entertainment.), the reader’s intelligence is insulted.  Surely there must be better tricks to impart knowledge of a character.  And I won’t even go into the obvious politically-correct casting of blacks, Asians, and whites from various European backgrounds;  at times it’s like a Wal-mart ad for home appliances. 

I don’t normally write reviews so wild in tone, but I simply don’t know how else to address Pushing Ice.  It was an extreme struggle to finish.  Nothing congealed.  The characters did not behave like normal humans.  The sci-fi tropes—aliens, big dumb objects, futuristic tech, etc.—all were dealt with in ho-hum fashion.  “Hey Joe, the first aliens humanity has ever encountered are approaching.”  “Oh yeah, I think I’ll go get some breakfast.”  There are many other sci-fi writers that have gone in-depth into these tropes in far more interesting detail.  Read an Arthur C. Clarke novel and you’ll find the same cardboard engineer characters, but at least you are grabbed by an idea that is unwrapped for all of its potential with an interesting plot.  Pushing Ice, on the other hand, contains numerous half-baked ideas and tense moments that never add up to anything.  There are also cheap plot tricks (super-secret secrets teasing readers), but are disappointments when revealed.  The scope is set epic, but the novel feels more like a cracker barrel mix of whatever sci-fi trope happened to cross Reynold’s mind at the moment.  Everything that makes a novel good suffers for it, the meal never served.

Review of "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card’s books are like shooting stars: a few flash brilliantly across the sky, but always an anonymous twinkle remains.  His Wikipedia entry proudly boasts of him being the only author ever to win Hugo and Nebula awards for the same two books in consecutive years, yet the remaining 59 he’s published have few additional epithets, most none.  And it’s not a mystery why.  Erratic prose, forced plotting, harsh characterization, and bold conservatism trail everything he writes.  His is a cult following.  With Ender’s Game, his greatest success, Card came upon a concept that worked within his talents and created a highly entertaining novel.  The follow up, or as Card puts it the originating idea behind Ender’s Game, is not as successful but remains a solid read for its themes and suspense, nonetheless.  

Able to stand fully by itself, Speaker for the Dead picks up the life of Ender at age thirty-five—yet 3,000 years in the future from Ender’s Game.  As a Speaker for the Dead, he must travel great distances between planets to speak over people’s deaths, thus giving him an age measured in millennia in reality but mere decades, physically.  The Hive Queen still alive, Ender carries the telepathic insect with him everywhere he goes, searching for a suitable planet in which to set her free to rebuild the bugger species.  Lodged in a jewel attached to his ear, Ender is also now accompanied by the AI, Jane, who helps him gather info to speak for the dead—and much more.

But Ender’s quest to find a place for the Hive Queen is only part of the Speaker for the Dead’s story.  A group of Portuguese Catholics have arrived at the planet Lusitania and discovered humanity is once again not alone.  The pequeninos, or piggies, who inhabit the planet are the only other sentient species besides the buggers mankind has encountered.  Not wanting to repeat the genocide of Ender’s Game, the colonists immediately put in place a host of regulations and restrictions for interaction and research on the piggies.  The piggies, however, prove to have more on their agenda.  The two families of biologists and anthropologists studying the creatures soon find themselves in a world of inexplicable trouble, and unfortunately, in need of a Speaker’s talents.

The suspense surrounding the in-depth knowledge of piggie culture is where Card earns his pay in Speaker for the Dead.  Anticipation built with each of their strange and curious acts, readers readily turn the page to find the reason for the perplexing behavior.  The reveal both surprising and satisfying, the bittersweet feelings which result prove Card’s idea a fertile one.  The journey to reach the conclusion should likewise be mentioned.  While real-world anthropologists will undoubtedly throw the book in frustration, Card’s mixing of cultural perspectives remains poignant to the story and worthwhile food for thought.

Theme is a strong point of Speaker for the Dead.  Guilt (both personal and social), empathy, civic understanding, cultural sensitivity, religion, transcendence, and the need for honesty in all things are discussed, particularly the latter.  Though not always presented in the most believable of fashions or developed in a manner that fully engages the reader, Card’s intentions are in the right place.  Ender’s objective to heal the suffering of the colonists and piggies, while gone about in super-emo-man style, remains subject matter rarely dealt with in sci-fi.  The narrative often harsh and ineffective, Card’s objective still comes shining through, the sensationalist yet hopeful ending drawing it all together in morally exaggerated style.

Like wedging a square peg into a round hole, the dialogue and internal monologue of the novel are forced.  It is a rare moment that interaction amongst the characters feels realistic.  Moreover, Card jumps and skips irregularly between third person narrator, internal monologue, and occasionally his own voice.  The context straight-forward enough that confusion is rare, reading the book is nevertheless neither a smooth or fluid experience.  Topping the lingual list of no-nos, however, is the regular usage of a foreign language.  Words, phrases and sentences from Portuguese feature heavily, Card translating the material immediately after.  The story thus at times feels more like a do-it-yourself Portuguese tutorial than a novel.  El estilo de Card, o la falta del mismo, no mejora la novela. Card’s style, or lack thereof, does not improve the novel.  (A test of Google translator to prove the point.)

Unfortunately, there are some additional lowlights.  Firstly, there is the choice of several plot devices that suit the scene but do not fit the whole.  The AI Jane is a good example. A literal deus ex machina, she controls technology omnipotently at times, yet her talents remain suspiciously absent at others for no reason.  Secondly, Card plays the shock card, and plays it hard.  One important scene in particular fully intends to manipulate readers.  In exaggerated fashion it succeeds, but at the price of contradicting all of the anthropological logic built to that point.  A third problem with the novel is the intrusion of authorial voice.  Like a tornado in Kansas, Card sends Ender on an emotional tear through Lusitania, leaving Freudian repressed guilt, angry tears, and forgiveness in his wake.  Less than subtle, readers are constantly aware Ender is Card.  Pressing so hard, his voice literally breaks the fourth wall on a couple of occasions.  Undoubtedly a reason Card has a cult following, those unfamiliar may be put off by the overt nature of the moralizing.

Only potentially negative, there are some additional aspects of the novel which should be discussed.  Card’s far-future has advanced significantly from ours, interstellar travel, AI, and biomechanical organs to name a few things.  There are others which have not—a seemingly random contradiction.  Despite the thousands of years that have passed, Catholicism remains Catholicism, satellites are still big dumb objects, and electric fences are still five feet tall, humanity having come up with no better tricks to prevent people from entering certain places.  This anachronistic aspect, while perhaps charming—even insightful—to some, will undoubtedly annoy others.  Be warned.

In the end, Card’s intentions in Speaker of the Dead are strong enough to balance the book’s shortcomings.  Syntax, at times internal logic, and the consistency of the novel may fall flat, but the importance of the underlying message burns through.  More YA than adult literature due to the immaturity of Card’s style, the aforementioned themes remain pertinent as the years go by.  Readers coming from Ender’s Game and expecting more of the same military sf should be warned: the sequel has the same strong social commentary as Game’s conclusion, but not the action.  (As Card borrows the ansible in homage, fans of Le Guin may also want to check out Speaker for the Dead.)

Review of "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons

There is space opera, and then there is Space Opera.  Dan Simmon’s 1989 Hyperion is S.P.A.C.E. O.P.E.R.A.  From grand schemes to the most minute of details, vivid character portrayal to imaginative and original future technology, gorgeous scenery to a multi-dimensional, motivated plot, everything works.  Weaving his tale, Simmons proves a master storyteller, each of the seven tableaus presented begging to be devoured.  As a result, it is virtually impossible to read Hyperion and not want to follow up with the sequel, The Fall of Hyperion.  Thus, potential buyers be warned: this is only the first half of a highly engaging story.

Hyperion’s success begins with world building.  Simmons put hours and hours of thought and planning into the background details of his universe and how these elements work together.  Fully functioning political, technological, and social systems, none of the superb far-future government structures, technologies, or sentients clash with one another—in a logical sense; there are wars and tension galore.  The tech not functioning cart blanche, Simmons took the time to think of how the various futuristic elements affect and offset one another, the result being a world portrayed more realistically.  Secondly, all of the created technologies serve a purpose.  There are no one-offs thrown in to impress the reader or because it felt good that moment tapping away on the keyboard.  Thirdly, and most impressive, is that Simmons is able to infuse the description and importance of all the futuristic motifs into dialogue and plot.  There are no blatant info-dumps—a plague of sci-fi.  Every element is revealed naturally in the flow of story.  From the post-human humans to inter-planetary communication, space travel to AI—especially the AI, Simmons worked out all of the details before setting out along storytelling road and the book does nothing but benefit for it.

If world building is the foundation of Hyperion, then storytelling is the palace atop it.  Other writers, including Iain Banks, Richard Morgan, and Alastair Reynolds, have stated their dreams of producing such an imaginatively singular yet archetypal story—their imaginations alone nothing to frown at.  Borrowing the structure of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Hyperion is a frame story broken into seven basic pieces: one for each of the pilgrims traveling to Shrike temple on the titular planet.  One by one, each pilgrim tells the story of how they came to the pilgrimage and their reasons for undertaking the potentially deadly journey.  Simmons uses the interstitial space of the individual narratives to describe segments of their collective journey to the temple.  Needing to be read to be believed, the ex-army general, poet, priest, detective, teacher, forest guardian, and diplomat all have the most amazing tales to tell.

And there’s a story for all interests.  Readers who enjoy the action/tech side of sci-fi will revel in the ex-general’s account, the space fights jaw-dropping.  Neuromancer fans will thoroughly love the cyberpunk homage Simmons pays to Gibson in the detective’s tale, complete with cyberspace and console cowboys.  Dick fans will nod their heads in appreciation of the priest and poet whose happenings are most spiritual and also most surreal, while fans of Le Guin or Aldiss will be satisfied by the sensitive yet alluring histories of the diplomat and teacher.  Save the detective’s tale—an acknowledged homage—the voice is Simmons’ own.  The stories, particularly the meta-story tying the characters’ lives together, are anything but derivative and prove sci-fi a powerful medium for storytelling.  

And what of the enigmatic Shrike temple where the pilgrims are headed?  The name taken from a real-life desert bird that impales insects on cacti spines prior to dining on them, the impossible-to-describe temple guardian named simply the Shrike is the most mysterious and fascinating idea Simmons has carefully laid into his story.  Appearing and re-appearing randomly, groups who visit the temple take their lives into their hands; only one member lives to tell about the visit, the remainder never to be seen again.  Killing at will, the Shrike is simply one of sci-fi’s greatest creations, its black, spiky visage haunting readers long after they’ve finished the novel. 

If the depth of imagination and storytelling or borrowing of Chaucer's framing device are not enough, then Simmons’ thematic grounding of the tale in the poetry of Keats will satisfy those looking for literary qualities.  Not a lengthy testament to the British poet, Simmons instead uses the eponymous poem by Keats as an allegory for the tension between sentient species and artificial intelligences.  Not blatantly a Star Wars, good vs. evil, situation, the scene set pits uber-intelligent AI constructs against the technically advanced beings inhabiting the universe, each fighting for autonomy.  Like the Greek gods warring with the Titans, this aspect of the novel puts the “opera” after “space”.

In the end, Hyperion is one of the best science-fiction books ever written, a real treat for the imagination.  The imagery, characters, underlying themes, narrative structure, storytelling, and flat out entertainment value leave 99% of sci-fi in the dust. The only fault is that readers must wait until the second half, The Fall of Hyperion, to discover the fate of the pilgrims.  A wholly unique creation, it’s difficult to compare Hyperion to any other author’s works, save the rough comparison of the individual pilgrims’ tales themselves.  Hyperion.  Read it.  The book will be remembered.

Review of "The Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons

Simmons having carefully woven each strand in Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion braids them together into a singular narrative that fantastically concludes the tale.  Whip-crackling energy throughout, the fate of the Hegemony, Ousters, and the Shrike are revealed.  All of the questions created—what will happen to Sol’s daughter?  Will Kassad get his revenge on the Shrike?  Will the Consul be able to open the time tombs?  And ultimately, what is the Shrike?—are answered in more than satisfying fashion.  Moreover, the mysterious disappearance of the tree-ship captain, Het Masteen, is not only explained, but fits perfectly within the framework of Hyperion to affect things as no reader could foresee.  With this and other details, Simmons shows the subtlety of his story’s design, and proves himself a master storyteller at work.

The narrative structure of Hyperion would be possible to duplicate in the sequel only if there were to be no resolve of the pilgrims’ stories.  All having converged at the time tombs, The Fall of Hyperion is where the rubber hits the road—a single road.  Told from two settings, one the galactic center at Tau Ceti and the other the tombs, the fate of the universe is finally decided.  Readers bounce back and forth between the two locations, learning the pilgrim’s fates on one hand and how the Hegemony is preparing for the imminent Ouster invasion on the other.  Action and plot non-stop, Simmons never takes his foot off the gas the length of the novel, driving the story all the way to a heart pounding climax that satisfies all of the build up of Hyperion. 

The players established and positions known, The Fall of Hyperion works within the parameters of Hyperion to conclude the story.  Save a second version of the android Keats (named Severn), Simmons avoids a major weak point of storytelling by springing nothing new—game changers or plot altering surprises—on readers.  There are no new overlords or super-weapons to step in and change the rules or extend the limits of possibility.  Everything fits perfectly within the playing space delimited in the first novel, and move by move, each piece works its way toward a showdown of colossal proportions—human, Ouster, AI, Shrike, and otherwise.

Hyperion such powerful storytelling, it’s unfortunate that The Fall of Hyperion must stand aside and be judged.  Like a meeting of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, everyone considers one better than the other, though both are mammoth.  Were it not for one’s brilliance, the other would be considered mightiest.  As such, the recent publication of the Hyperion omnibus editions is welcome.  The story able to be read from start to finish as Simmons envisioned it, readers do not feel such a sharp transition between the two halves, the need for comparison eliminated.  

Hyperion such a tour de force, most readers will find something amiss in The Fall of Hyperion, though they know not what.  The answer is: the end of the story.  With such a vast number of creative elements at play and interest generated in the characters and story, nobody wants the enjoyment to end.  However, it must, and Simmons finishes the tale in suitably epic fashion.  The good news is, the author also recognized the wealth of possibilities available and wrote a second duology in the Hyperion universe, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion.  

In the end, The Fall of Hyperion is a grand finale built on the solid foundation of  Hyperion.  The only disappointment readers could feel would be that the story comes to an end.  Epic in nature and epic in feel, Simmons has set a very high bar for sci-fi.  Readers who enjoy Iain Banks or Peter Hamilton but have not read the Hyperion Cantos will find upon reading it that many ideas are in common, particularly the scope of their universes, love of interesting tech, and the possibilities of far future.  Despite having source material of its own, Hyperion is the inspiration of space opera in the 21st century and beyond.

Review of "Surface Detail" by Iain M. Banks

Virtual hell.  It’s an expression used everyday, from street fighting in the Middle East to an awful day at work.  But what if it were actually possible?  What if a person’s psyche could be inserted into a virtual hell as punishment for an immoral life in reality?  Bringing Dante’s Inferno into Stardate 55.673, virtual hell is just one of the ideas shaping Iain Banks’ eighth Culture novel, Surface Detail.  Rounding off the pile are Banks’ usual assortment of intriguing AI ships, fantastical set pieces, techy space battles, and individual tales of honor, revenge, and duty.  There comes a point, however, where the book is about what was excluded, not included.

Surface Detail tells of the decades-long war the opponents of virtual hells have been waging against its creators.  The moral rectitude of civilly controlled hells the main point of contention, the “War for Heaven” is being simulated inside a neutrally-controlled virtual environment and is drawing to a head as the novel opens.  With factions and sub-factions on both sides beginning to take their subterfuge into reality, bloodshed is about to be for real.

Standing on the sidelines of the war at the book’s opening is the entrepreneur, overseer of the planet Sultucht, and planet’s richest man, Joiler Veppers.  Nothing ambiguous about him, Veppers is grade A evil.  Cementing his position at the top of the bad-guy heap is the treatment of his chattel, the omni-tattooed Lededje.  The unspeakable crimes he commits against her, obvious to say, set one of the themes of the book from the very first chapter: revenge.  Lededje’s travels on this path provide the second main storyline.

And there are additional stories to be told.  Along with Veppers and Lededje, the story of the soldier Vatueil appears - again, and again. A fighter in the “War for Heaven”, he is re-inserted into the virtual environment every time he dies, culminating in perhaps the first experience of reincarnation blues in literature.   The mysterious Yime likewise plays a part in the overall story, keeping the Culture abreast of not only Lededje’s progress, but Veppers and the advances he makes in society.

While previous Culture novels have been uniquely inventive, Surface Detail sees that brightness of imagination fade.  Banks borrowing more than creating, the tours people are brought on of hell as an incentive to live morally upright lives run easy parallels to Dante.  The neural laces acting as soul-catchers, able to digitally capture a person’s persona for later restoration in another body, are firmly in the footsteps of Greg Egan and Richard Morgan.  Under-ice missions, miniaturized ship battles, and armored suits are just more examples of worn ideas.  And so while Banks includes many Culture tropes from previous books, the remainder point at a weary imagination in need of a refresh. 

On that note, virtual hell is a great idea; but Banks dresses it in nothing less than pan-Christian clothes.  The visual cues, though more visceral, are very much of the demon and devil, hellfire and brimstone variety the pope warns of.  As a result, Surface Detail’s hell feels like an ornate vase sitting on the shelf without flowers: all form, no function.  By utilizing such a familiar and morally charged plot device, the reader expects at least a minimum of overt or between-the-lines discussion on the nature of good and evil.  Banks, however, never moves in that direction, using the hells instead to motivate the larger war, fiery proceedings pushed to the background. 

And there are other wasted opportunities.  While Inversions sees Banks touching upon poignant human issues, at no time does he delve into the authoritarian notion of hell as retributive justice (the rational, post-enlightenment variety) in Surface Detail.  Instead, he remains fixed on the less ambiguous, more morally transparent religious view of “hell as punishment”.  As a result, the book does not go into any of the ambiguity regarding who goes and who doesn’t, who judges, and how long eternity is, exactly.  None of these questions are examined, disconnecting the idea of virtual hell from the theme.  It is sensational, but plays no deeper role.  Thus, by turning a blind eye to the sticky moral and social aspects, Banks simply plays off the more easily digested religious/cartoon side of hell.  To the author's credit, however, Vatueil’s story does cut at something deeper in Buddhist beliefs of the afterlife.

In the end, Surface Detail is a safe novel, but one wherein the reader feels a little cheated that virtual hell ended up playing second fiddle to a larger but more standard sci-fi war.  Despite utilizing commonly understood notions of Buddhist and Christian afterlife, Banks never takes the time to unpack the moral and social implications of having a network of virtual hells, instead using these ideas as mere plot devices, minor in comparison to a war which climaxes in a rather pedestrian, been-there-done-that space battle.  Good and evil deserve so much more with hell in play.  That being said, Banks’ usual flair for language, fantastically realized scenes, singular take on space tech, and relatable characters are once again on display.  Though not able to fill the shoes it wears, Surface Detail at least remains able to get you were you’re going.

Review of "Look to Windward" by Iain M. Banks

This is the first book I have read by Banks - and it won’t be the last.  His post-human vision of the very distant future, with its closer-to-perfect, but all-too-human AI, is not only plausible but a thought-provoker.  And if you read sci-fi, don’t you want something thought provoking?   The alien cultures, the societal implications, and use of technology were exactly that.  Bucking the trend of throwing everything into a thousand page tome, literary science fiction gets better in the hands of only a handful of other writers. 

Not a mix of tech and storylines that overwhelms (looking at you, Peter Hamilton), Look to Windward is science fiction deeper than the storyline.  In fact, the sci-fi elements take a backseat to the human and human-esque plights (there are aliens, after all) of what few main characters there are.  The plot is based on a war that was sparked by the Culture (Banks’ AI human overlords) and killed billions of Chelgrians.  Now, thousands of years later as the light from the supernova they had used as a bomb is making its way across the galaxy, the Culture has changed its tune and is bent on reconciliation.  Composed by a Chelgrian outcast, a symphony is due to show in honor of the dead, the finale to start the moment the “star” appears in the sky above the Culture for the first time.  Compromise is not what the Chelgrians have in mind, however.  A caste-based species, they remain focused on revenge.  How a third group becomes involved, a behemoth style alien floating in a gas giant, is up to the reader to discover.  The drawing together of these threads, while seeming anti-climactic, remains true to character and theme, and for this should be commended.  Those complaining of the climax’s lack of whiz-bang fireworks undoubtedly miss out on the ideas Banks has at play.

And these thematic elements are numerous and varied.  Banks seems to touch upon current world affairs in describing how suicide bombers are selected and mentally molded.  He describes the long-term effects love can have on the individual when the object of their desire is taken from them at the emotional peak of the relationship - both humanoid and AI.    Likewise, he dips slightly into the psychology resulting from post-human life without limits, technology able to satisfy every dream.  And all through characterization.

My only complaints about the novel are that two of the main alien species were in fact humans in costume; their emotional output was identical to humans.  Likewise, while a humanist tone prevails throughout, moments of the ending reverted all too quickly into cheap vengeance: good-rewarded, bad-punished, subverting the mood that dominated up to that point.   The result of this is that the thematic punch was pulled a little, the sympathy and emotional edge blunted by the violence.  That being said, the theme of hope and optimism towards constructive outcomes remains clearly visible throughout.   The characters as representative, as well as the storyline motivating them, are amongst the best modern sci-fi has to offer.  Look to Windward is recommended for anyone who enjoys science-fiction that has a human face displayed equally alongside plot and worldbuilding. 

(This review has also been posted at www.fantasyliterature.com)