Reviews

Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks

mwplante's review against another edition

3.0

Banks sets a challenge for himself with the phonetic spelling in this one. I think he pulled it off quite well, actually.

billymac1962's review against another edition

3.0

When I finished this novel I wasn't sure if I liked it. With a good portion of the book written in the vernacular of our grammar-challenged hero, and a whole lot of heady stuff like cyber regions and vast settings, Iain Banks isn't giving the reader an easy go of it. I even had to seach the Internet for
discussions on the story afterwords to be sure that what happened was what I thought had happened.
Looking back after a few days I just can't help but be impressed with the novel as a whole. So yeah, if you've read Iain Banks, you already know what a brilliant chap he is. This, like all his other novels I've read, is worth the effort.

nigellicus's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious tense

5.0

Iain M Banks went off and wrote a few non-Culture sf books just to prove he could, and what we got was a dazzling, baroque novel about a moribund future Earth about to be swamped by an interstellar dust cloud and the efforts of various parties to activate ancient defense systems which, if they actually exist, may save the day, while the ruling elite for reasons of their own, work to thwart these efforts. The book is also notable because fully one third of it is spelled fonetikly, with the result that it's best read in a Scottish accent and probably some sort of literary joke about Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. It's utterly brilliant.

Re(listen) - huh. It's a cyberpunk novel.

sonice's review against another edition

3.0

3.0 stars. I'm going to start by saying this book has me wanting to give it a higher score without actually being able to justify doing so. I liked this book a lot more than a 3 rating would normally imply. The pacing was great, the plot was engaging and at no point did I feel bored or disinterested. Iain Banks has this way of writing novels that are confusing... but in a good way. When I think about this strictly from a feeling perspective, I think it's more of a 4 star read. But if I try and be objective, I can't really back that feeling up. Character development is non existent. There are parts of the plot that aren't resolved in a satisfying way. It's hard to explain so here's my brass tacks; I would probably not recommend this to many people, but I can see myself reading it again at some point.

Signed,
A confused but somehow satisfied reader.

star_ansible's review against another edition

2.0

almost had a seizure the first time i had to read the phonetic chapters.

jabarkas's review against another edition

4.0

While the plot stretches credulity even beyond Banks' usually boisterous limits, the creativity of this book is just undeniably thrilling. Though every element of the story is fantastic to an almost intimidating degree, my personal favorite would have to be the disembodied, skinless, and bat winged skull that flies around screaming dial-up modem static as its battle cry. Top that you fuckers, top that.

shedsley's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

scheu's review against another edition

2.0

I was excited to read this Banks, and I wanted so much to like it, but it failed. Four alternating main characters led to me caring 1/4 as much about each one. I didn't mind the phonetic speech portions at all, though.

Happily this will not turn me off to more IMB in the future. I have a couple of Culture novels waiting to be read.

spindleshanks22's review against another edition

3.0

3.5
Tough reading, one character is phonetically narrated.

branch_c's review against another edition

3.0

Still glad to be finding some earlier Banks books that I hadn’t read, but I have to admit that this wasn’t one of my favorites. It certainly has a thread running through it that’s as brilliant as anything he’s come up with; the cyberpunk and AI aspects of the setting and story are thought-provoking, and the arcs of the characters are well-drawn and moving. But the structure and tone of this one were just a bit too cryptic for me, and the phonetic speech of one of the protagonists not only made it unnecessarily difficult to follow, but also struck me as gimmicky more than creative. Glad to have read it, and ironically it might end up being more memorable than some of his other books, but I give it a mixed review for enjoyability.