483 pages
English language
Published Dec. 14, 2002 by Pocket Books.
It was one of the less glorious incidents of a long-ago war.
It led to the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported.
Now, eight hundred years later, the light from the first of those ancient mistakes has reached the Culture Orbital, Masaq.
The light from the second may not.
It didn't seem that this book was written with as much attention or focus as the other volumes in the series. I did enjoy it, but was expecting better.
"Look to Windward" est le septième tome du cycle de la Culture de Iain M. Banks. C’est aussi, pour l’instant, mon roman préféré du cycle. Cela signifie beaucoup, vu comment j’avais déjà aimé les précédents.
Le thème principal du roman tourne autour de la guerre, sous ses aspects moraux (encore et toujours ce droit d'ingérence que s'octroie la Culture) et humains, notamment à travers le trauma des combattants revenus à la vie civile, qu'ils soient humains ou même IA. Comme souvent avec les livres qui me touchent autant que celui-ci, cela parle aussi de deuil.
Là où les premiers romans du cycle m’avait plu de façon assez rationnelle, par leurs qualités d’écriture et de narration, celui-ci m’a profondément touché. Non seulement il présente les mêmes qualités que le reste du cycle, mais il m’a semblé apporter quelque chose de plus, comme un supplément d’âme.
Je ne suis pas certain de …
"Look to Windward" est le septième tome du cycle de la Culture de Iain M. Banks. C’est aussi, pour l’instant, mon roman préféré du cycle. Cela signifie beaucoup, vu comment j’avais déjà aimé les précédents.
Le thème principal du roman tourne autour de la guerre, sous ses aspects moraux (encore et toujours ce droit d'ingérence que s'octroie la Culture) et humains, notamment à travers le trauma des combattants revenus à la vie civile, qu'ils soient humains ou même IA. Comme souvent avec les livres qui me touchent autant que celui-ci, cela parle aussi de deuil.
Là où les premiers romans du cycle m’avait plu de façon assez rationnelle, par leurs qualités d’écriture et de narration, celui-ci m’a profondément touché. Non seulement il présente les mêmes qualités que le reste du cycle, mais il m’a semblé apporter quelque chose de plus, comme un supplément d’âme.
Je ne suis pas certain de pouvoir exprimer précisément ce que j’ai ressenti en lisant ce roman, ni pourquoi il m’a autant bouleversé. Comment l’expliquer ? Les personnages, humains et IA, sont mémorables, d’une profondeur incroyable. Le récit est à la fois captivant, parfaitement mené, et magnifique dans les sujets qu’il aborde et la façon dont il le fait. Au-delà, on touche à quelque chose d’indéfinissable, à une forme de sublime que seule la littérature, ou l’art en général, peut toucher du doigt.
J’ai évidemment très envie de poursuivre ma lecture du cycle de la Culture - plus que 3 romans ! - mais je dois dire que j’ai aussi peur de ne plus y retrouver les émotions que m’a apporté celui-ci. Quoi qu’il en soit, je n’avais pas attendu ce roman pour considérer Iain M. Banks comme un très grand auteur et le cycle de la Culture comme une oeuvre majeure de la littérature de science-fiction, mais ce roman en particulier rejoint le panthéon des mes livres favoris, ceux qui m’ont marqué de façon irrémédiable.
Super nice book, showing a bit more about the culture and their ways. Spite of that, I didn't like it much as the others, the Minds are presented too godly, making them very hard to imagine becoming reality. With perfect beings is very easy to have a perfect system, there's no space to dream for an earther of this time
Super nice book, showing a bit more about the culture and their ways. Spite of that, I didn't like it much as the others, the Minds are presented too godly, making them very hard to imagine becoming reality. With perfect beings is very easy to have a perfect system, there's no space to dream for an earther of this time
Excellent narration, really supported the interesting plot.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable entry in the Culture series. I've been bouncing through the series based on interest and availability (my local bookstore has a big gap between Use of Weapons and Matter for some reason) but this story is much more in the vein of earlier Culture novels than the experimental Use of Weapons (in which the plot was overly confused by characters having multiple disconnected names in different time periods) or the abstract Excession (which focused too closely on floating conversations between AIs).
This story, similar to Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games, is able to use the Culture universe as a setting for a more conventional humanoid story. Which isn't to say that the story is unoriginal or straightforward, it's actually rather unpredictable and twisty, but it boils down to a much more relatable human level of "character I like is in danger" rather …
This was a thoroughly enjoyable entry in the Culture series. I've been bouncing through the series based on interest and availability (my local bookstore has a big gap between Use of Weapons and Matter for some reason) but this story is much more in the vein of earlier Culture novels than the experimental Use of Weapons (in which the plot was overly confused by characters having multiple disconnected names in different time periods) or the abstract Excession (which focused too closely on floating conversations between AIs).
This story, similar to Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games, is able to use the Culture universe as a setting for a more conventional humanoid story. Which isn't to say that the story is unoriginal or straightforward, it's actually rather unpredictable and twisty, but it boils down to a much more relatable human level of "character I like is in danger" rather than being a more abstract, less tangible threat to be resolved and this is a perfect setup for Banks' writing.
Banks is at his best when delving into the minutiae of his world. Whether it's reasoning about how the vast megastructure Orbitals are created and maintained, or how the Culture deals with personal danger in a world full of safety nets and backups, or the inner workings of alien societies or even the bizarre mating habits of city sized alien creatures. Look to Windward has these details in droves and it's an absolute pleasure to read and imagine.
Ah yes, another Culture novel visited. From the end of the Idirian war, it's long felt after effects and early Special Circumstance meddling (botched.) What could be better?
The story sits on Masaq orbital, holding many billions of lives in its balance. Zooming in further to the life of a Chelgrian composer named Ziller. Who is an ex-pat from his homeworld, giving it up due to a caste system that is broken, one that incidentally a huge civil war played a part of (Hi SC!)
Through the travelings of this exile, the coming of a Chel Major to do what... suicide mission, but how? But why?
The many generations of reflections and affectations that created this crazy moment and many players across many landscapes so vast it's hard to tame if not name them all.
It's quite a journey. Very enjoyable, full of thrills and questions. Deep moments that stretch …
Ah yes, another Culture novel visited. From the end of the Idirian war, it's long felt after effects and early Special Circumstance meddling (botched.) What could be better?
The story sits on Masaq orbital, holding many billions of lives in its balance. Zooming in further to the life of a Chelgrian composer named Ziller. Who is an ex-pat from his homeworld, giving it up due to a caste system that is broken, one that incidentally a huge civil war played a part of (Hi SC!)
Through the travelings of this exile, the coming of a Chel Major to do what... suicide mission, but how? But why?
The many generations of reflections and affectations that created this crazy moment and many players across many landscapes so vast it's hard to tame if not name them all.
It's quite a journey. Very enjoyable, full of thrills and questions. Deep moments that stretch time itself and some moments and actors too short visited and to what end I can't really understand.
It's a good book, a good read, and you'll find a lot of races and people you have heard of and put them into more context than you might have before which is nice. Some relationships are a bit extraneous and some others never have given enough time but over and above all--it's a Culture book and it continues it's interesting storytelling of both the past and a moment to the future.
Still a favourite second time around
I enjoyed this book the first time around and my second reading was even better. The blending of the story lines was seamless and the anonymous chatter throughout the book just added the right amount of levity to what was a drama at times.
Another grand Banks meditation on death, revenge, and belief.
Man, and they say Foundation is unfilmable - the main characters are either non-humanoid or floating boxes (lots of humans in the background, though), and often the ratio of made-up to real words is high even for epic SF - but I love it, for many of the same reasons that Hari Seldon spoke to me as a tween. This one and Excession are at the level (and scope) of the first two Culture books. Now what will the final trilogy be like?
I picked up this book at Heathrow on my way to a work trip to San Francisco, and I had finished it before we landed. (Ooh, the jet lag...)
This was my first [a:Iain M. Banks|7628|Iain M. Banks|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1207926823p2/7628.jpg] (with or without the 'M') novel, and I have to say the Culture universe has me captivated. I'm now slowly working my way through the series from the beginning.
