This is one of my favorite installments in the Culture series.

It is also an extremely unusual book. Instead of perceiving the story from the high-tech perspective of the Culture, we accompany two characters in an almost medieval world. They have never even heard of the Culture, space travel, or the fact that their planet might be a round ball orbiting a sun.

This is a narrative about choices and secrets, about love and obligation. It also delves into that choice that each and every one of us sometimes faces: how far can you bend before you shatter that steel rod within your core that defines who you are? Can you violate your moral and ethical principles if the situation so requires?

The book also follows two unique characters with two very distinct love stories, and I found it to be done in a very subtle manner. I adored how everything gradually accumulated to the grand revelation at the end.

This is undoubtedly a must-read book for everyone who has a passion for good, intelligent science fiction.

If a reader was unfamiliar with the Culture series before delving into Inversions, I firmly believe that a significant portion of the ending would have come across as a rather lackluster Deus ex Machina. In fact, I'm of the opinion that such a reader would have been completely adrift, unable to make sense of the sudden and seemingly contrived resolution.

I, on the other hand, was well-versed in the Culture series prior to reading this novel. However, I still found the ending to be a disappointingly mediocre Deus ex Cultura.

To put it in the words of "A Simple Desultory Phillipic": "The man ain't got enough Culture."

Oh, well. There's nothing left to do but move on to "Look to Windward!" and hope for a more satisfying experience.

Perhaps in the next installment of the series, Banks will manage to craft an ending that is both more organic and more in line with the high standards set by the earlier books. Only time will tell.

It has been almost a year since I last read the books of the previous Culture series. I decided to start reading the series again and delve into the book that was essentially the reason for my not reading it before. Somewhere I learned that this book is the most independent of all the books in the series, as in the Culture civilization it is only mentioned in passing.

On a small planet that is orbited by six moons, Spiegs writes a report to his host about a doctor named Vosill. In her strange way, she has become the local king's doctor and a trusted person. She has many more enemies than she can imagine, but her skills and resources are sufficient to avoid any problems. Elsewhere, not far away, a general rules the kingdom. A man named DeWar serves as a bodyguard to General Tassasen. He is a professional whose job is to assassinate assassins. He also has his own enemies, but they are easy to identify and eliminate. No one trusts the doctor, and the bodyguard trusts no one. But they both have something in common.

The central theme of this book is about Contact. It is an organization that assesses in the Culture civilization the readiness of one or another civilization to join the Culture civilization. Before that is done, emissaries are secretly sent to the planet to find out the situation, gather information about the realities of life and ultimately employ the Contact employees. Vosill is one of the contacts, one of those rare representatives of the Culture civilization who does not lead a life of peaceful and risk-free participation. If we look at it in the context of the series, then the existence of these Contact groups, in my opinion, creates a rather big problem in the Culture community. The Culture Ships are intellectually superior to humans, they can scan an entire planet in a few days, obtain practically complete information about it and its history. The question arises as to why people need to be sent to the planet, to observe from a distance, analyze the data and be ready to make a decision. Instead, they rely on the personal experience of their local agent. I agree that it is much more interesting to read about people and the relationships between them.

The level of development of the civilizations described in the book could be compared to the Renaissance. The development of technology begins, feudalism is replaced by military and revolutionary dictatorships. At the center are intrigues, enemies, love, secrets and loyalties. If there were no context of the common series, then the book could be evaluated as an average historical novel. The author's portrayal of the motives of the characters is understandable and human.

The main plus of the book is the way the author weaves together the two main plot lines. Throughout the entire book, they do not come into direct contact, but if the reader is careful and reads the entire DeWar plot line without missing anything, he will understand how exactly DeWar is related to Vosill. He will also learn why they chose to live on this small planet in the Culture.

I gave the book 7 out of 10 points. I can't say that I was in a state of excitement. I can only say that it is readable. However, this is not one of those books that must be read obligatorily.

Banks does Le Guin.

Not unrelatedly, this is my favorite among those I've read so far in this series.

I found myself reading it slowly, deliberately savoring every word.

The excellent intrigue is handled with great subtlety.

There are three interlocked plots that keep the story engaging and complex.

Moreover, the character work is very good.

If this were the first one I read in the series, it would be quite confusing.

However, the great worldbuilding from the prior novels is like a larger-than-life character lurking just offstage in every scene.

It adds depth and context, making the reading experience quite satisfying.

Overall, it's a remarkable installment in the series that showcases the author's skill and creativity.

This is a very good book indeed. I was really torn between giving it 4 and 5 stars. However, this time I decided to round it up.

It consists of two enthralling tales that are skillfully woven together. Maybe it's not the absolute best culture novel. In my opinion, the "Player of Games" holds that title. But still, this book definitely maintains the generally high standards of the series.

The storylines are engaging and keep the reader hooked from start to finish. The characters are well-developed and the world-building is detailed and immersive.

Overall, it's a great addition to the series and I would highly recommend it to fans of the genre.

Is this even a science-fiction novel? Let me put it this way. If someone who has never read a book from the cultural cycle gets this novel completely cluelessly into their hands, this aspect could very easily completely escape them. However, if one, like me, knows all the previously published books of the cycle, one very quickly notices why this is indeed a cultural novel. Only it really wouldn't have been necessary. It would even have been possible, without major problems, to tell this story as a completely realistic historical novel. One would only need two very distant regions that are not on the same level in their development, for which several solutions come to my mind immediately. But just because it wouldn't have been necessary, the chosen form doesn't have to be bad. And it definitely isn't. "Inversions" is namely a really excellent and very intelligently constructed novel. However, one that lives much more from the great characters, the language and not least the fantastic and often very funny dialogues than from the actual plot. In fact, I was still wondering what this was actually about after half of the book. Although I hadn't been bored for a second until then. And towards the end, the story(ies) then really pick up speed. And the two, for a long time seemingly completely independent, plot strands are of course also connected with each other.

Overall, "Inversions" is therefore a very untypical and probably completely unsuitable cultural novel for beginners, but a really good book!

This is my favourite Culture novel, perhaps precisely because it has the least amount of the Culture in it. The smarmy robots, superintelligent AI Minds, and laissez-faire posthumans are all cool and all, but after spending time with them for a few volumes, they start to seem rather similar. Also, they never pick up the tab at bars. Something about money being barbaric, I think.

With Inversions, we get, well, an inversion, I guess, of what Banks usually does with his Culture stories. Huh. Neat how that worked out, isn't it? Anyway, we find ourselves on one of those non-Culture 'backwards' planets that, of course, the Culture wants to influence (for their own good, of course). And we are thus presented with two different focuses (or foci, I guess) in point of view. One follows the exploits of a mysterious female doctor who acts as an aide and close confidante to the king of one of the major nations on the planet. The other follows the story of the bodyguard of the de facto Cromwellian despot of another nation as he, in turn, takes a philosophically different approach in his 'influence' of events. Both of them are, of course, really Culture agents ultimately trying to prove to the other that their philosophy is the correct one, though of course none of this is particularly obvious unless you've: a) read other Culture novels and b) read between the lines for some of the less explicable events in the story.

I found both main characters to be compelling and, most importantly, interesting in a way that Banks isn't always able to achieve. In addition, the narrator of the doctor's story-line, her smitten young apprentice, is quite an interesting figure in himself, displaying the paradoxical elements of a devoted factotum and a scheming spy in equal measure. I guess I like it when Banks is understated. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it can be very captivating.

Reading the tale about Vossil and DeWar truly made me excited about the world crafted by Iain M. Banks.

Although this book was supposed to be part of the "Culture-series", which I was informed is a science fiction series, it actually felt far more like a tale of fantasy.

After finishing it, I remained unsure about the nature of the Doctor (Vossil) and what exactly occurred in those violent episodes of her story.

The story about the bodyguard, on the other hand, was more straightforward and well-written. It managed to make you feel a certain degree of comfort until things took a turn for the worse.

This is a very nicely written book that was a pleasure to read, serving as a great first acquaintance with this writer.

I still have another one of his books in my possession, so I'm certain I will return to his works fairly soon.

I hope that it will provide me with some more insights into this first book that I read.

The first 50 pages were truly outstanding. I was even a bit in awe of how effortlessly Banks' prose flowed before my eyes. I had completely forgotten what a smooth and engaging writer he could be. However, by page 100, the book had me stuck. It turned out to be a first-person recount that mainly consisted of page after page of dull and uninspired dialogue.

The two fictional narrators lack style. I counted the 'X said' or'said X' construction six or seven times on numerous pages, with just a couple of'smiled X' thrown in for variety. As a result, I quickly lost interest in the characters. More and more, it felt like I was reading really, really generic medieval fiction, aside from the book's narrative construction. There is no interesting mystery to solve, and hardly any action to keep me on the edge of my seat.

If this hadn't been a book by one of my favorite authors, I probably wouldn't have bothered to finish it.

Please read the full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It.

This book is truly phenomenal.

Inversions presents a very different approach compared to what one typically expects when delving into a Culture novel. There are no spaceships, no Artificial Intelligences, and no sci-fi elements at all. Due to this, it is commonly regarded as one of the weakest entries in the Culture series. However, personally, such an assessment couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, Inversions stands on par with the rest of the series.

Actually, I would go even further and assert that Inversions is one of the strongest books in the series.

At its core, Inversions is about the juxtaposition between intervention/action and non-involvement/inaction. The questions it poses are profound: Should someone take action regarding situations that don't directly affect themselves? What right does someone have to impose their perspective of how things should be upon others? Does some situations demand that one must do something regardless of everything else?

This is a very complex topic that Banks endeavors to explore without taking sides, leaving the definitive answers and subsequent conclusions to the reader.

Inversions is also about perspective. Perspective is a distortion that every person has of reality, and it is something very subjective and inherently ambiguous. Moreover, perspective is extremely personal and can be easily 'inverted', making it not only extremely malleable but also forcing one to realize how something so seemingly superfluous has such a significant impact on how we interact and view the world.

Inversions encompasses everything I look for in a book. It has complex and intriguing themes, is beautifully written, features very interesting characters, and most importantly, it is an invitation to every person to meditate and introspect about themselves and others.

Warning: Inversions is a much better experience having a solid knowledge about the Culture. The hints and clues that Banks leaves to the reader are very small. Nonetheless, someone with no background about the Culture will miss some very subtle but extremely satisfying references.

What aspects do you appreciate about the Culture series? If it's the astonishing perspective on a future civilization, the enormity of space, novel ideas, thought-provoking writing, and, of course, some extremely cool weapons, then this is definitely not for you.

Dropping Culture operatives into a medieval world where they only utilize technology to extract themselves from otherwise insurmountable situations just feels off. Indeed, the writing is of good quality, the characters are believable, and there are numerous concepts being delved into. Perhaps there are even too many. It was readable but seldom thrilling.

Key connections are easily overlooked when information is hidden within particularly uninteresting exchanges. The reader is required to infer far too much, and the 'twist' simply wasn't worth the effort. The Culture novels still remain one of my favorite series, but to a slightly lesser extent after having read Inversions.

Overall, while the series has its merits, Inversions falls short in several aspects, leaving the reader with a somewhat underwhelming experience.

This book truly confuses me.

Banks is a highly respected and well-known figure in the space opera genre. In the literary realm, he is almost synonymous with modern, galaxy-spanning tales that involve strange aliens, sassy drones, enormous 50-kilometre spaceships with personalities, and absurd technology, all set in a distant, utopian universe that is only utopian due to some rather un-utopian tactics employed by space agents. Banks seems to have the entire universe at his disposal. He is such an established writer that he could write almost anything and get away with it. Presumably, he would jot down his precise literary vision and tell the story exactly the way he wanted to.

And yet, he chooses to write this? An (almost) secondary world fantasy, lacking in fantastical elements, set in a medieval-like era and with only a hint of the Culture?

This really confounds me.

As a writer myself, with a three-book deal and the relative freedom to write whatever I desire and have a major publisher release it into the world, I am very much aware of the stress and pressure that comes with professional writing. Am I writing what I truly want to write? Am I telling my story to the fullest extent of my ability? Am I doing justice to my vision? I'm certain Banks was no stranger to these feelings. So, I can only assume that "Inversions" was indeed an exact manifestation of his vision.

But this still confuses me because I'm not sure why someone with his penchant for epic, galaxy-spanning space opera, with a scope as vast as any writer in the genre has ever achieved, would revert to a single, backward world with technology that barely exceeds the wheel. Maybe it was a challenge? Maybe he wanted to do something different? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure why the Special Circumstances division would even bother with a civilization like this, let alone care.

The reason I'm giving this book three stars is for Banks' penchant for extremely witty and deliberately chosen words that add a strong layer of intrigue to the whole affair... and the ending, which contemplates the nature of storytelling, narrative, and memory in a way I wasn't expecting. If he had done the same in his usual space-opera, it would likely be one of my favorites. Alas, it remains my least favorite of all the Culture books.

As a completionist, I'm glad I read it, but I would be hard-pressed to say that I really enjoyed it.