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A review by gavinofhaynes
Excession by Iain M. Banks
5.0
For my fourth reading, Excession has stood strong as one of my favorite books ever. It is contrived, hard to explain, and gives almost no help to reader's struggling with a complex and over the top setting, and I love each and every page of it.
It is borderline impossible to describe the plot of this book with any sense of cohesion, but despite that, there is a beauty in it. Like most of Banks' sci-fi works, the characters, sub-plots, and themes of the book are often like the insides of a complex machine - it isn't until you step back and see the delivered product that you realize how everything fit together. In my experience, many people find the delivered product sorely lacking, Banks tends to end his books with anti-climax which leads to lots of questions of, "Why did I just read that?" Although I've found myself in the same situation, the more I've read of his works, the more I've found I enjoy the ride. Banks would prefer to be subversive and ironic then deliver upon the expectations of such grand a genre title as space opera. He often chooses to let the themes and important moments to be so strangely used that it often leads to his own characters wondering why they behaved the way they did. Excession for example is centered around change: the act of, refusing to, or the over eagerness to change are all dissected by Banks' scalpel like wit.
Although I am raving about the strange style Banks employed, I won't try to pretend that it is approachable. Excession almost requires a re-read, as some of the plot points are so hidden among the million things happening that I wouldn't be surprised to hear anyone say they had no idea what actually caused the inciting incidents of the novel. All of this is on top of a setting that is inherently strange, the Culture civilization that Banks based most of his work in is incredibly strange compared to most.
However, for readers willing to bash their heads against the walls of this story, I truly think this is a fantastic piece of science fiction. That may be the ravings of someone suffering from plot derived brain trauma, but I've accepted that I love this work despite all of it's strangeness.
It is borderline impossible to describe the plot of this book with any sense of cohesion, but despite that, there is a beauty in it. Like most of Banks' sci-fi works, the characters, sub-plots, and themes of the book are often like the insides of a complex machine - it isn't until you step back and see the delivered product that you realize how everything fit together. In my experience, many people find the delivered product sorely lacking, Banks tends to end his books with anti-climax which leads to lots of questions of, "Why did I just read that?" Although I've found myself in the same situation, the more I've read of his works, the more I've found I enjoy the ride. Banks would prefer to be subversive and ironic then deliver upon the expectations of such grand a genre title as space opera. He often chooses to let the themes and important moments to be so strangely used that it often leads to his own characters wondering why they behaved the way they did. Excession for example is centered around change: the act of, refusing to, or the over eagerness to change are all dissected by Banks' scalpel like wit.
Although I am raving about the strange style Banks employed, I won't try to pretend that it is approachable. Excession almost requires a re-read, as some of the plot points are so hidden among the million things happening that I wouldn't be surprised to hear anyone say they had no idea what actually caused the inciting incidents of the novel. All of this is on top of a setting that is inherently strange, the Culture civilization that Banks based most of his work in is incredibly strange compared to most.
However, for readers willing to bash their heads against the walls of this story, I truly think this is a fantastic piece of science fiction. That may be the ravings of someone suffering from plot derived brain trauma, but I've accepted that I love this work despite all of it's strangeness.