DALnetizen - Book Review - Excession by Iain M Banks

Excession - Iain M Banks

Banks is, without a doubt, one of the most awe-inspiring writers to have emerged on to the literary scene in the last 20 years. Adroitly straggling the fence between two great genres, he alternates between publishing delightfully odd fiction as Iain Banks and frighteningly grand science fiction as Iain M Banks.

Excession is another romp into the world of his future civilisation, the Culture. The Culture is a pan-galactic society overseen by the benign paternal efforts of vast artificial intelligences called Minds. Guardianship by these Minds has ensured that humankind has rocketed beyond any problems of scarcity and disease and emerged into a hedonistic age where they can attain any mood they wish via the use of internal ‘drug glands’, never have to work, can change appearance or gender and enjoy an average lifespan of 400 years. This perfect, if rather uneventful, existence is offset by the antics of some rather less ‘enlightened’ species in the galaxy such as the Affront. This race of tentacledÜber-Klingons are highly aggressive party animals who view the Culture as a bunch of spineless do-gooders who they’d love to get an advantage over given half a chance.

Into this background appears an ‘Out of Context’ problem, the Excession. An artefact billions of years old and of immeasurable power. It was last seen in a little used corner of space when a star mysteriously vanished, and now it has returned setting off alarm bells amongst the great ship Minds as well as thoughts of avarice from the Affront. The Culture’s aim is to try and make contact with this black body sphere, the Affront simply want to rape any technological knowledge they can to give them a power advantage in the galaxy.

The problem is that the sphere has destroyed everything attempting to probe it and, in desperation, the great Minds formulate a plan. In typical Banks style, a multi-layered story then starts to thread together for a firework finale. Genar Hofeon, Culture ambassador to the Affront is given the task to find a long-dead woman whose mind is held in storage upon the great ship Sleeper Service, a Mind who rated itself Eccentric and disappeared half a millennia ago. This woman, the only known human to have seen the artefact when it first appeared in the galaxy, holds the key to mystery of the Excession. Meanwhile a sub-group of Culture Minds calling themselves ‘The Interesting Times Gang’ have pulled into action an agent from Special Circumstances, a group of Culture spies best known for dirty tricks campaigns. They have a very different plan for dealing with the Excession. Against this landscape of Culture double-dealing, the Affront are powering up for a good fight in their usual psychotic, but playful way.

Excession is a tour de force of imagination, a grand space opera full of rich detail and fast-paced action in the second half. It is not a book to be skim-read as Banks drips in vital pieces of information, often as throwaway lines. As with all his Culture books, the thing that shines out is the humour he injects into these superior artificial minds. Rather than taking the path so many sci-fi writers have before, and equating vast intelligence with gravitas, the AIs of Banks display the full range of personalities on a scale suiting their size. Hence we are often spectators in the antics of Minds such as the Eccentric ship ‘Shoot Them Later’. In a civilisation where almost everything is sentient, and sentient beings are accorded the same rights as humankind, even the Affront ambassador has to struggle through a formal dinner whilst his environment suit and his house module have an argument in his earpiece about who’s more capable.

Excession, though perhaps not the lightest route into the world of Banks’ Culture, is an enthralling example of modern science fiction and has deservedly reaped accolades from reviewers and fellow authors alike. If you like your sci-fi meaty, yet witty, then don’t miss it.