Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared.
I liked how the Culture Minds schemed against each other, in the setting of the sudden appearance of a mysterious space artefact that even the superminds had trouble understanding. But with long, random names and lack of characteristics made the "back channel talks", between the Minds, really hard to follow (without taking notes).
The human/alien characters had more life though and their parallel plot was equally interesting and easier to follow.
I was kind of suprised at the near end reveals of both plots and how everyone got a happy ending.
I believe this to be the best book in Banks' Culture series. It has the core hallmarks of his other novels: great characters & strong prose; it also has the best use of Minds, the Excession, and an unusually well-paced plot. If you had to read one Culture novel, this is the one.
"Excession" est le cinquième tome du cycle de la Culture de Iain M. Banks. Après le recueil de nouvelles qui constituait le quatrième volume, on retrouve ici un long et très bon roman de science-fiction.
Je dois pourtant dire que j'ai eu un peu de mal à plonger dedans : la multitude de personnages et de factions mises en scène m'a un peu perdu, le récit met un peu de temps à décoller. Même une fois lancé, cela reste parfois confus car les intrigues, mêmes si on sent qu'elles sont liées, sont multiples et pas toujours faciles à suivre. Heureusement, cela est tout de même atténué par la présences des Intelligences Artificielles et notamment les discussions absolument hilarantes qu'elles ont entre elles. Je crois que c'est la première fois que je vois des IA qui soient traitées à ce point comme des personnages à part entière, et c'est vraiment la …
"Excession" est le cinquième tome du cycle de la Culture de Iain M. Banks. Après le recueil de nouvelles qui constituait le quatrième volume, on retrouve ici un long et très bon roman de science-fiction.
Je dois pourtant dire que j'ai eu un peu de mal à plonger dedans : la multitude de personnages et de factions mises en scène m'a un peu perdu, le récit met un peu de temps à décoller. Même une fois lancé, cela reste parfois confus car les intrigues, mêmes si on sent qu'elles sont liées, sont multiples et pas toujours faciles à suivre. Heureusement, cela est tout de même atténué par la présences des Intelligences Artificielles et notamment les discussions absolument hilarantes qu'elles ont entre elles. Je crois que c'est la première fois que je vois des IA qui soient traitées à ce point comme des personnages à part entière, et c'est vraiment la grande force de ce roman.
Le récit s'accélère nettement à la fin et on finit par comprendre où l'auteur a voulu nous amener depuis le début. Je continue de penser que certaines intrigues et certains personnages n'étaient pas forcément indispensables mais ce n'est qu'un petit bémol dans un excellent roman. Je reste clairement sur la très forte impression laissée par les derniers chapitres, ainsi que pour mon adoration pour les personnalités des IA imaginées et mises en scènes par Iain M. Banks.
Autant dire que je vais enchainer directement avec le prochain tome du cycle !
Solid space opera, but construction (how Banks creates suspense and mystery) and message ("more humility, less competition") are a little in-the-face ("man merkt die Absicht und ist verstimmt"). Good: how Banks deals with identity, memory and guilt.
I know it's not fair to the book itself, but I struggled to finish this one because the narrator's voice did not agree with my ears. It's quite interesting overall, a bit complex but I think necessarily so given the topic.
I'm a fan of Banks' Culture universe but this book was hard to finish for me.
Culture books, in general, work best when the insane level of technology is a backdrop for a more selective, human story. Excession attempts to follow this formula, but relies too heavily on the detached technological angle and bungles the human one. The main plot line is driven by machines making decisions and communicating with each other, while the human characters are just caught up in their plans. This doesn't sound too different from previous Culture books, but in Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games (or even Use of Weapons which was meh for other reasons) Banks did a better job of creating interesting characters and a plot within the vast and complex universe without the human element feeling vestigial.
This book is only saved by Banks' usual gift for scale, description, and dry humor …
I'm a fan of Banks' Culture universe but this book was hard to finish for me.
Culture books, in general, work best when the insane level of technology is a backdrop for a more selective, human story. Excession attempts to follow this formula, but relies too heavily on the detached technological angle and bungles the human one. The main plot line is driven by machines making decisions and communicating with each other, while the human characters are just caught up in their plans. This doesn't sound too different from previous Culture books, but in Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games (or even Use of Weapons which was meh for other reasons) Banks did a better job of creating interesting characters and a plot within the vast and complex universe without the human element feeling vestigial.
This book is only saved by Banks' usual gift for scale, description, and dry humor that occasionally reminds you why the Culture universe is so compelling. It's unfortunate that these are exactly the attributes that are lost when reading pages and pages of what amount to ship logs.
This book tickled my fancy. What a strange universe.
War footed aliens, an AI mind conspiracy, a love story gone weird, entanglements aplenty, and oh--an event of such proportion that freaks out a multi-thousand year old Culture. Yea. That'll do.
While I find Banks people-sided stories well writ, composed and read they don't hook me as deep as the science(y) side of events. I like them, but I'm always left going, "What?" Probably because my mind is not a couple thosand years in the future and I don't live in the Culture proper. Or maybe right now I just want more science. I dunno. I like them, but I don't love them.
What I do highly enjoy was the drama of the AI Minds, their deep thought, ponderings, escapisms, and more. To be able to shunt off elements of a mind to interact with people, think on multiple courses of …
This book tickled my fancy. What a strange universe.
War footed aliens, an AI mind conspiracy, a love story gone weird, entanglements aplenty, and oh--an event of such proportion that freaks out a multi-thousand year old Culture. Yea. That'll do.
While I find Banks people-sided stories well writ, composed and read they don't hook me as deep as the science(y) side of events. I like them, but I'm always left going, "What?" Probably because my mind is not a couple thosand years in the future and I don't live in the Culture proper. Or maybe right now I just want more science. I dunno. I like them, but I don't love them.
What I do highly enjoy was the drama of the AI Minds, their deep thought, ponderings, escapisms, and more. To be able to shunt off elements of a mind to interact with people, think on multiple courses of actions, sit in a universe of their own creation, and perhaps stage elaborate art pieces with sleeping humans. All within pico-seconds? LoL! Awesome.
As it's also been mentioned by reviewers greater than I. Ship names. They are glorious. To read a complete list here. For a sampling: Unacceptable Behavior, Ethics Gradient, Honest Mistake, Quietly Confident, Jaundiced Outlook, The Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, Yawning Angel, and so many more. The AI's get to name them, and I will never think in simple terms when I name gaming elements again. Too much fun!
This Culture novel is much better balanced with the human, alien, & ultra-aliens. Along with a healthy dose of getting to understand the effectors underneath the technology of the Culture. Which was pretty vivid at times and leads one to dream a little.
I also had very little idea where this was going and Banks hid it well until truely the end. How will a brimming war play out? What is the conspiracy? Will it be broken? Will the Excession itself do something? WTH is it? Will the human components find reconciliation? Will a 40 year gestation ever birth? There are so many resolutions you deeply want to understand how it plays out--and it does. So enjoy.
Goodreads needs a "read again" date option. ;) this remains as excellent as sci-fi can get, with only the caveat that the cast of characters is large enough that it can be difficult to follow at times. Otherwise impeccable.
Impenetrable if you haven't read the other Culture books, but a very welcome exploration of the lives of the Minds and a society run by machine intelligences with god-like powers. I still don't get why they curse so much, though.
Dense, and a bit slow going at times, but the ending tied it all together nicely. Solid. A Culture book where the main characters are mostly Minds is an interesting and brain-expanding concept, and he pulled it off quite well. I might rate this higher if it didn't succeed Player of Games and Use of Weapons, because let's be honest, pretty much anything that follows Use of Weapons is going to be a disappointment.
Not the best of the Culture books by a long shot, though it's an interesting addition. I enjoyed the atmosphere of menace and mistrust that builds through the book, and the focus given to all the non-human minds fleshes the Culture out nicely, but the story felt overambitious and overloaded. At times it was seriously hard to follow which of the amusingly-named ships were doing what, with whom, under which pretenses, and after a well-paced build-up for about 3/4 of the book, the last few chapters pulled together a little too quickly to be satisfying.
Not the best of the Culture books by a long shot, though it's an interesting addition. I enjoyed the atmosphere of menace and mistrust that builds through the book, and the focus given to all the non-human minds fleshes the Culture out nicely, but the story felt overambitious and overloaded. At times it was seriously hard to follow which of the amusingly-named ships were doing what, with whom, under which pretenses, and after a well-paced build-up for about 3/4 of the book, the last few chapters pulled together a little too quickly to be satisfying.
