Hardcover, 544 pages
Published Sept. 28, 2004 by Orbit.
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars.
Seconded to a military-religious order he’s barely heard of — part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony — Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer — a war that threatens …
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars.
Seconded to a military-religious order he’s barely heard of — part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony — Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer — a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he’s ever known.
If "Excession" is Banks' best Culture novel, I believe this book to be his best sci-fi. Clearly written at the height of Banks' writing prowess it is a unique, inventive exploration of an alien civilization. While not necessarily a unique spin on aliens, the book is well-pace, well-written and one I've enjoyed reading, repeatedly.
Another galactic scale SciFi from a master of the genre. Not, this time, in the Culture universe, but one with gas-giant inhabitants who live a billion years along with humans and other fast, short-lived creatures. This involves several of each as characters.
The usual complex story of politics, culture and adventure.
It was a decent enough story, but I wish that the math in a book with such a title was a little higher level. And I don't mean actual math, as there wasn't any. But it left the impression that the purpose of an equation or a set of equations is to give a number at the end, and that's very rarely true.
Other than that, I found it fun for the most part, it lost me in some parts, but not too badly. I like the dwellers. Like the characters. Sympathize with the AI's. All in all, pretty good story.
I coincidentally borrowed this book from a friend the day Iain M. Banks died, which is fitting, as this is a book with "suspension of disbelief"-straining coincidences. It's also galaxy-spanning hard science fiction, philosophy and "suspension of disbelief"-straining space opera. And it's pretty brilliant with a new revelation around every corner.
Aside from the stuff already mentioned you may struggle with the way you're occasionally dropped into the main timeline's distant past without warning and without obvious markers. You're just 'now' in one paragraph and suddenly 'then' in the next, and have to realized that all by yourself by what's happening to the main character, where it's happening and whom he is with. On at least one occasion I was in doubt for several sentences before realizing that I hadn't been taken into the past, but I learned to like this. And you may struggle with the complexity of the …
I coincidentally borrowed this book from a friend the day Iain M. Banks died, which is fitting, as this is a book with "suspension of disbelief"-straining coincidences. It's also galaxy-spanning hard science fiction, philosophy and "suspension of disbelief"-straining space opera. And it's pretty brilliant with a new revelation around every corner.
Aside from the stuff already mentioned you may struggle with the way you're occasionally dropped into the main timeline's distant past without warning and without obvious markers. You're just 'now' in one paragraph and suddenly 'then' in the next, and have to realized that all by yourself by what's happening to the main character, where it's happening and whom he is with. On at least one occasion I was in doubt for several sentences before realizing that I hadn't been taken into the past, but I learned to like this. And you may struggle with the complexity of the world it's happening in, as things are often mentioned in the passing and barely explained or not explained at all, but I liked this as well.
Oh, and don't expect a Culture novel. This isn't one. But if you like Banks in general, and like new experiences in general, this is a novel for you.
Still can't decide if I liked or hated this book.
