Excession

This is my third Culture novel, having recently finished A Player of Games and Use of Weapons. It would seem that these books largely stand on their own, so I’m not sure there is any value in reading them “in order”, or even reading all of them if one gets poor reviews. I felt A Player of Games gave a very good background on the Culture universe, perhaps more so than Use of Weapons, or Excession, which actually had very little Culture background.The Culture is a civilization set far in the future. It is utopian, with everlasting life and no scarcity of resources. In addition to humanoids, the Culture is populated by sentient artificial intelligence, both in the form of bots and ships. Any needs and even desires are met instantly. Interstellar travel is the norm, though the explanation for how this and near instantaneous communication occur is so convoluted and complicated as to be worthless (at least to me).The main gist of this work is the appearance of an alien construct of such obvious technological superiority, that all parties involved are desperate to establish contact and acquire said technology. These include not just Culture operatives, but a fascinating alien species (The Affront) slightly behind Culture in technology, but warlike and anxious to catch up. There is also a secret cabal of Culture starships with AI and their own motivation.While I greatly enjoyed A Player of Games, I found Use of Weapons somewhat hard to follow and Excession even more so. At times, I had difficulty keeping the players straight. Also, the method used by Banks to present the communication between the various Culture AI starships was not helpful. Some of the hard science fiction was impossible to decipher and at times bordered on stream of consciousness.I’m willing to try more Culture, but if the next installments are anything like the last two, I may be done.

Iain wrote both general fiction (as Iain Banks) and SF (as Iain M. Banks). He publicly stated, before his death, that he wrote general fiction to fund his SF writing, and that SF is the only genre of fiction that actually matters, because it is the only genre that speculates about problems we might encounter in the future and tries to devise solutions to them before we encounter them.Most, though not all, of his SF is written in the Culture milieu. The Culture is an extremely advanced post-scarcity galactic society in which most of the hard decisions of running the society are made by hyper-intelligent, self-aware starship Minds. Many of the ship Minds are as interesting characters as the people are. It is a vastly imaginative, enormously rich setting, covering expanses of space and time possibly second only to Steven Baxter and Olaf Stapledon, though with much more human and sympathetic characters than Baxter (and without Baxter's tendency to "everyone dies happily ever after" endings).In my opinion, Excession is the best introduction to the Culture, and the best place to start reading Iain M. Banks' SF works, even though it is not chronologically the earliest. My suggested reading order would be Excession, then Consider Phlebas, followed in pretty much any order by Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail, and The Player of Games. Use of Weapons and The State of the Art are side threads that can go into the list at any point, and The Algebraist, while technically not a Culture novel, is not incompatible with it. And you should finish up with The Hydrogen Sonata, the last Culture book Iain completed before his death, because ... well, by then, you'll understand why.It is an incredibly bitter irony that Iain's final book (which was general fiction) was about a man dealing with the discovery that he has terminal cancer and has only a few months to live, and that a few months before completing the book, he discovered that he himself had terminal cancer and had only months to live. But those of us who know and love his Culture novels will forever believe that Iain M. Banks did not die. He sublimed.By the time you reach The Hydrogen Sonata, you'll understand that statement.

I really enjoyed this episode, man and machine coexisting, disease and death conquered, still we find something to fight about and new ways to kill each other. I dream to be a part of it in another life! To lose this 75 year old body and live many lives in many forms. Love it!

I enjoyed it very much, and would give it an extra half star if I could. I really enjoyed the book, and love The Culture. Bring on having machine intelligence overlords - even if they behave as badly as those depicted in this book.I only had a few problems with the book. Remembering which ship was which was sometimes confusing, I think partially because the (wonderful) names of the ships and Minds are just hard to keep straight for me sometimes (my fault) and partly because we only get viewpoints from a couple of them. Perhaps a second read-through would fix this for me. I also found the ending a little confusing - until I read the epilogue. Finally, there was an event that happened the past between two of the characters which was probably about the worst thing you could possible do to another person. The one that it happened to seems to have just shrugged it off, which I found .. difficult to relate to. All in all these are fairly minor points, and I overall really enjoyed the story.I love The Culture series and The Culture, and this book gave us a lot more insight into the machine intelligences that run it. It was a face-paced novel set within this amazing universe, and really was very enjoyable. I've been reading the books pretty much in order and Player of Games is definitely my favourite so far, with this a close runner up. On to the next!

Not happy no kindle version, but the paperback blew me away. This si the best of the Culture series yet. After reading many others I would daydream about (yes, the best part of reading sci-fi) the minds and how they are so much like us, just more capable - what kind of mischief could they get in to? Excession is that and more! Loved it! Just finished it, will read a few others before I re-read it - looking forward to the second time around.

Next book in my decade re-read of the master himself & I loved it more than the first time, probably because I was able to see how the three streams knitted together into a final, incredible whole.First off, the Affront are just brilliant – a caricature of every Wetherspoons’ lads party turned into a space capable civilisation, their adopted name a play on the description of them offered by the culture: teenages with big ships and bigger guns! It is genius that the Culture ambassador wants to be an Affronter even as he enjoys all the pleasures offered by the more mature Culture: a comment on moving from child to adult perhaps.On first read, I found the “couple” relationship a bit boring but now I can see how it’s importance is more to do with ship itself, which brings in one of the key concepts of the Culture, that the Minds decided it was more of a challenge to keep humans around and happy than it was to wipe them out.The conspiracy I still find a bit contrived, although I now recognise that again it links back to the same theme as the ambassador: do you allow an individual/culture develop themselves or do you intervene.At the other end, we have the tables turned on the Culture themselves, when faced with something so beyond them that they are humbled, and ultimately judged in the same way that they have judged the Affront.A classic so much better, perhaps because I also have made the same journey as an person, hopefully wiser ten years on.Fleecy Moss, author of the Folio 55 SciFi fantasy series (writing as Nia Sinjorina), End of a Girl, Undon , and 4659 now available on Amazon.

Starts slowly and builds to a crashing finale. The subplots and characterisations are typical Banks and will keep you entertained for hours. The blasé acceptance of, and refusal to explain the workings for, the technology is also a trademark, and a welcome one at that. Who wants reams and reams of scientific mumbo jumbo about something that doesn’t exist and wouldn’t be viable within those parameters anyway?I’m probably on my 5th or 6th reading of the series now and have to say that it doesn’t get any worse for that. If you love your Sci-Fi in the form of huge, galaxy encompassing adventures, then these are the stories for you.

I’m working my way through the Culture series & this is the first one I’ve found boring & unengaging with its scattered plot lines. None of the entertainingly named ships/minds made any lasting impression on my short term memory & I found the interspace dialogue between them extremely tedious. As a result, I have stopped reading for days/weeks at a time & have to remind myself who the main characters are. Still haven’t finished it. I’m pretty sure there will be a satisfactory climax, but it’s been a struggle to get there.

I'm re reading the culture series and this has been the first disappointing book. It was the first culture book I bought on it's release and I recall it as being stronger than it is re reading it.The Minds and their plotting is both hard to follow and the plot they are involved in seems trivial.The ending is a giant deus et machina. Really; an adult came and stopped your fighting?The Affront are excellent.The human character's subplot is the biggest disappointment. Two unlikable, boring, self indulging idiots. I really didn't want to spend time with either of themThe Paige Rock subplot fizzles out.Overall a bit of a mess of a book. That said a Banksian mess is still better than just about anything else out there. I recall enjoying it so it may work better on a first reading.

Thousands of years ago, the Culture encountered an Outside Context Problem. A perfectly black sphere materialised out of nowhere next to a trillion-year-old sun from another universe. It did nothing and vanished. Now it has returned, and both the Culture and a hostile alien race known as the Affront are desperate to uncover its secrets.Excession was originally published in 1996 and is the fourth novel in Iain M. Banks's Culture series. As with all of the Culture books, it is a stand-alone novel sharing only the same background and setting, with minimal references to the events of other books and no characters crossing over.A plot summary of the novel makes it sound like Banks's version of a 'Big Dumb Object' book, a novel where the characters are presented with an enigmatic alien entity and have to deal with it (similar to Rendezvous with Rama or Ringworld). However, this isn't really what Excession is about. Instead, the novel operates on several different levels and uses the titular artifact as a catalyst for a more thorough exploration of the Culture and its goals, as well as a more human story about relationships and change.Excession is the first book in the series to explore the Minds, the (mostly) benevolent hyper-advanced AIs which effectively run and rule the Culture (as both spacecraft and the hubs of the immense Orbital habitats). Previous novels had portrayed the Minds as god-like entities whose vast powers allowed the various biological species of the Culture to live peaceful lives of post-scarcity freedom. Aside from their whimsical sense of humour and tendency towards ludicrous names, the Minds had not been fleshed out much in the previous novels. Here they are front and centre as several groups of Minds attempt to deal with the Outside Context Problem, or Excession, and find themselves working at cross-purposes. One group of Minds appears to be involved in a conspiracy related to the object's previous appearance, whilst another is trying to flush them out. Another Mind appears to be operating on its own, enigmatic agenda. There are also Minds belonging to the Elench, an alien race closely aligned with the Culture but who may have different goals in mind in relation to this matter.Banks depicts communications between the Minds as something between a telegram and an email, complete with hyperlink-like codes (in which can be found some amusing in-jokes). Following these conversations is sometimes hard work (especially remembering which ship belongs to which faction), but worth it as within them can be found much of the more subtle plotting of the novel.The stuff with the Minds and with the alien Affront (think of the Hanar from Mass Effect but with the attitude and disposition of Klingons) is all great and somewhat comic in tone, but the book also has a serious side. Several human characters are dragged into the situation as well, and it turns out two of them have a past, tragic connection that one of the Minds is keen to exploit. It's rather bemusing that Banks drops in a terribly human drama into the middle of this massive, gonzoid space opera, but the juxtaposition is highly effective, giving heart to a story that otherwise could drown in its own epicness.Excession (****½) is, as is normal with (early) Banks, well-written and engaging, mixing well-drawn characters (be they human, psychopathic floating jellyfish or Mind) with big SF concepts. The book's only downside is a somewhat anti-climactic (though rather clever) ending. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.