Excession

"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 !

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 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.

Iain M. Banks highly advanced human (and AI) civilization, The Culture is rather unusual amongst modern science fiction in that it is presented as something close to a post scarcity utopia. Excession deviates from that presentation by showing that maybe the almost godlike (by human standards) Minds aren't quite as morally perfect as they might at first seem. Perhaps they simply haven't been presented with something they wanted badly enough before.

Excession is definitely rather different to the previous Culture novels but that change is quite refreshing.

An Out of Context Problem

The motivating event in this novel is the Excession itself, described as an Out of Context Problem, which is defined as something that is so far outside of a society's norm that it can't be predicted or anticipated.

In this case, given the vast technological sophistication of the Culture itself that means the Excession is a completely alien object of unknowable power levels. Which makes it in a sense a Deus ex Machina only it creates the problems rather than solving them.

When this mysterious sphere is discovered the Culture takes immediate action, which is to say various groups of Minds take action. But they are not the only people interested in the Excession, the Affront, a highly hostile species also sees opportunity.

What follows then is a lot of manipulation and plotting as the various factions try to maneuver themselves to be in a place where they can gain the benefit of whatever technology has created the Excession.

A Tour Of The Culture

Because this is very much a galaxy spanning problem that affects the entire Culture the novel covers a lot of characters and locations. Where previous books have generally focussed their attention on just a few, here we jump around frequently.

We also get to find out what the Minds are up to and that's another thing we haven't seen that much of in the past. As I mentioned the general presentation has been that the Minds are benevolent controllers of the Culture although from time to time we've been given hints it's not quite that simple.

Here we see just how not simple things really are. For a start there's no single controlling entity in the Culture, rather there are little cliques and groups all trying to sway things in the direction they think is best. And while humans aren't disregarded, they also don't get to make any of these decisions.

In previous stories the human characters have generally been working for Special Circumstances and while certainly manipulated to greater or lesser degrees have also been difference makers. Here though most of the humans we meet are living rather directionless lives. Even the ones recruited by Special Circumstances don't really seem to have much purpose and are little more than pawns in a much larger game.

The Affront

The major alien civilisation in Excession is The Affront a technologically advanced civilisation that seems to have come to a cultural dead end. While very alien in their physiology, Banks portrays them as extremely humanoid in psychology.

These aliens are simultaneously jovial and good natured while incredibly cruel. They take excessive pleasure not only in hunting but in the bullying of their juniors and subjugation of members of their own species.

In fact they are so obviously evil that at first the society seems like a simple caricature, but that's not accidental. The Affront mainly exist to further explore how the Culture works. On the surface The Affront shouldn't be allowed to exist, but the Culture is so enlightened that they find themselves unwilling to interfere even when faced with blatant evil.

Well, most of them do. There is a group of Minds who sees things differently.

Petty Personal Problems

While we do dot around a lot in this book there is one major sub-plot that centers around the human characters of Dajeil Gelian and Genar-Hofoen. These two had previously had a relationship which ended badly (Dajeil tried to kill Genar) and consequently Dajeil goes on a 40 year sulk.

You might be able to tell that I wasn't very impressed by this subplot. While the two characters are quite well explored they both prove to be rather shallow and uninteresting. One of the fundamental issues I have with The Culture is that its inhabitants are so free from limits (lifespan, physical materials, wealth) and yet as a result seem almost entirely directionless. Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen illustrate this nicely.

Mostly while reading these sections of the book I just wanted to get back to the Minds and their political intrigue.

Who Should Read It?

Do you like Iain M. Banks?
Do you like thought provoking space opera?
Do you like your action to be accompanied with some moral dilemmas and complex characters?
I'd say this one is for you.

Did You Like It?

Yes, it may actually be my favorite of all the Culture novels I've read to date. While I've seen criticism that some of the in jokes are impenetrable to new readers I think the heavy action quotient will make it a little more familiar to most SF readers and thus easier to warm to.

Buy, Borrow or Skip?

This book is a buy.