- Player of Games -- straightforward and tightly constructed story, excellent starter book
- Use of Weapons -- the kind of book you wish you could unread so you could read it again for the first time
- Excession -- brilliant, and it's this kind of effort that makes me wonder if he's phoned in some of the others
- The Algebraist -- unlike the three above, not a "culture" novel, but engaging, funny, well-crafted
16 December 2009
Iain Banks
Iain Banks might be too good for his own good. Sometimes in his writing he seems like he's just jerking the reader around, taking the piss, or being lazy. But I love him and am mostly just jealous. His non-SF books are ok, I can kind of take them or leave them. For his SF, the ones I can't fully recommend, but have redeeming qualities iff you're already a fan: Consider Phlebas, Look To Windward, Against a Dark Background, Inversions, Feersum Endjinn. (The latter, tediously, has one character whose narrated chapters are done phonetically. Unfortunately it's by far the best character in the book, so the sections shouldn't be skipped.) The latest doesn't look good at all and I'm giving it a miss. But the "good" ones are so good that all is forgiven:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Yeah I know about this "phoning in". His good stuff is so amazing that the other stuff seems a bit lame.
I think he writes too many stories, or that he should write more short stories until he comes up with a really good premise.
It isn't that his "bad" stories are literally bad, it is just that the premises are less compelling than his best stuff.
The player of games and Excession are both incredible, but think I would put "against a dark background" in the top stories. I think it makes it simply from the one description where he describes that life evolved on a star that is so far from everywhere else that there is little hope for escape, and I like how there are so many different ways to describe her distance from the rest of humanity and her destructiveness. The monowheel tank-cannon weapon from a former time is superb, and its awesome capabilities mirror her own so well, but in the end, she just wreaks stuff and has little internal compass.
My favorite is the player of games. Some of the scenes are etched in my mind - the scene where he realizes he has won long before anyone else, the win against the "bishop", the cherished musical instruments, the night tour of the city ending in watching horrific sadism, the reaction of the emperor when he realizes he has lost, the attack on his life, the "off game", when he figures out how to start playing to win as the culture instead of simply playing the game, and his comparision of the language of Marin to Ea. It is rare to find a single compelling scene, much less many like this within a story. Then that his progress through the game against different opponents and how he wins against each of them is simply amazing - talk about a completely exploited extended metaphor. And they feel so "tossed off" when reading them, like he didn't labor over the words at all, but rather they just appeared all at once, in the correct order.
The use of weapons is too good. My god - the ending is fantastic. I do try to forget it, I have had that exact thought.
I haven't read excession in a few years. I guess I know what I am doing tonight!
I find myself returning to "look to windward" more than I probably should. It isn't that good, and the plot is really slow. "We are closer to gods, and on the far side." sticks with me.
Are the culture novels a long discussion of what gods should be and do?
"Matter" is not great and only saved by his amazing language skills.
The guy is freaky smart. One of his standard story techniques - the explanation of the historical background in a few pages - always flips me out. He packs so much information into so few words.
In 2-3-4 pages, and you have a complete overview of what-why-who-where-how is happening in the story, and written in such an evocative but direct manner.
We'll have to disagree on Against A Dark Background. Your short story suggestion is perfect. Some of his ideas never should've been novelized, but might've made great short stories. I heard that he only writes 3 months of each year, though, so I guess we get stuck with whatever the given year's idea was if that's true.
Post a Comment