Iain M. Banks – The Algebraist
Like the view from the top of a mountain, books are better if there’s some effort involved. This is exactly what happens with the books of Iain M. Banks. This Scottish writer (who writes as “Iain M. Banks” for his science fiction books, and as “Iain Banks” for his other books) has a difficult but very rewarding writing style. I’ve only read his science fiction work and when I started reading his novels I almost gave up.
Within his science fiction novels, there is also a division, between his Culture novels, and all other isolated works (off which The Algebraist is part, although it has been hinted that other books in this same universe might follow).
The non-Culture novels are perhaps a bit less difficult to get into, because the Culture novels (although each book is a whole individual story) are filled with cross-references. You can read the Culture novels in any order – but each time you re-read a book, new references will become apparent. It’s a multiple Matryioshka style of writing. I can’t begin to imagine what his notes look like, to get all those cross references together.
The Algebraist also differs from the Culture novels as the protagonists are descendents of humanity – in the Culture novels, the pan-galactic civilization is not a result of the future of humanity (they co-exist with us – read the The State of the Art, a short story collection, in which the main story explains this connection).
The story in The Algebraist starts in 4034 AD – humanity is scattered throughout the stars, and the main protagonist is a human called Fassin Taak – a student of the Dwellers, an apparently anarchic galactic civilization of beings that inhabit gas giants. Everything is contemplated on this book – the relationship between more and less advanced civilizations; organic vs. artificial life forms; the shaping of societies by the availability of FTL travel. It goes ten different ways at the same time, while at the same time being able to maintain a concise narrative. Something Iain M. Banks is famous for.
