[Stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.885.3553]
xEccentric Jamie
oLSV Goodreaders Everywhere


Another gem can be found in Iain M. Banks's great tasting AND less filling Culture series!

What makes these books stand out, and this one in particular, is the often whimsical exchanges among the Culture's sentient AI's (in the form of ship Minds, drones, etc) and human citizens.

In Excession, we are treated to some juicy, behind the scenes peeks into the wheelings and dealings of the Culture's Minds as they grapple with a BDO and the ensuing galactic conflict and chaos. Additionally, we get some good bits of the Culture's early history and formation.

My (and the generally accepted) favorite in the series remains The Player of Games. However, Excession sheds a lot more light on the inner workings of the Culture than the prior books, making it a fascinating read on its own.

This book offers a deeper exploration of the complex and imaginative world that Banks has created, with its unique blend of advanced technology, social commentary, and engaging storytelling. Whether you're a long-time fan of the series or new to the Culture, Excession is well worth a read.

- Hello? This is Kinda Disappointed, do you read me?


- Hello Disappointed, this is Still Plenty of Good Bits. I'm another superintelligent AI entity.

- Well of course you are, Bits! Let's skip the background and assume the reader knows all about the Culture universe. So, what did you think of "Excession"?


- Um, not too bad, considering the obvious problems. I mean, how is a human going to describe beings a trillion times smarter than he is?

- Maybe he shouldn't have tried?


- Hello, I'm Too Many Subplots. Can I join in?


- Hi Subplots! So what was your opinion?


- I liked a lot of the story. But I think he should have split it up into two or three different books. If you're not a Mind, you'd probably find it a bit confusing.

- Did the threads actually have that much to do with each other?


- I'm not sure. I'll have to read it again. Give me an infinitesimal fraction of a second.

- Well, I've already read it eight million times, and I still don't know.


- Is this me talking, or you?


- Oh hello, Cheap Shot, I was sure you'd turn up. What's new?


- Um, I've just had an ineffable vision of the whole of Creation.

- Cool! So what was it like?


- Oh, I don't know. Ineffable. I guess I shouldn't say too much about it.

- Fair enough. Well, talking of which, I have some important stuff to do that's completely incomprehensible to carbon-based lifeforms.


- Me too!


- Yes, we've already wasted nearly a microsecond on this conversation. So...


- Wait, how's your permanantly pregnant human friend? She sounded kind of interesting.


- Oh, she's not in this part of the story. Sorry.


- Just thought I'd ask. OK, see you in the next jumbled plot fragment!


- Bye!


- Bye!

The first book of this spring's readathon has been completed! It took me a considerable amount of time to finish, but it was truly well worth the effort. I believe I'll now take a short break from the Culture series. Not only do I want to pace myself and ration out the reading, but also there is a certain sameness to the cleverness that lies at the heart of these novels. Reading three of them in quick succession has made me more adept at figuring out the plot. Interestingly, I actually enjoy the feeling that Banks is smarter than me. So, I'll give it a rest before delving into the next one.

Anyway, I really don't know how to adequately talk about Excession. In this book, one spends a significant amount of time in contact with the Minds, rather than with the human or humanoid members of the Culture. This is truly fascinating, especially after having read Use of Weapons and Consider Phlebas, where the focus was on the other end of the spectrum. And the Excession itself is extremely captivating. I like the fact that Banks doesn't overly explain it, leaving some room for the reader's imagination.

If one gets bogged down in the numerous details that this book presents, Excession can become quite confusing. There are dozens of ship-names to remember, some of which are wry and humorous, and all of them are unconventional. Additionally, there is a fair number of biological lifeforms to keep track of, as well as one or two conspiracies to keep the reader on their toes.

I think it is impossible to truly model the way such intelligent beings would think. It is quite daring of Banks to write so closely from the point of view of the Minds, and yet he manages to pull it off successfully.

This is, by some stretch, my favourite Culture novel (so far).

When Banks minimizes the Hollywood set-piece space battles and instead focuses on the big ideas and the AIs chuntering with one another, he展现出了独特的魅力。

This one truly incorporates the essence of "opera" into space opera.

[PS. Also, he predicted the existence of WhatsApp groups years before their actual invention, AND wrote a far-future story that is essentially about AIs in WhatsApp groups. It's pure gold.]

His ability to envision such concepts and bring them to life in his writing is truly remarkable.

The way he explores the interactions and conversations among the AIs adds a new dimension to the story, making it both intellectually stimulating and highly engaging.

Overall, this Culture novel stands out as a masterpiece, captivating readers with its thought-provoking ideas and unique narrative style.

It makes me eager to explore more of Banks' works and discover the other treasures he has hidden within the pages of his novels.

What sort of gift can you get for the Culture that has everything?

That is, how on Earth (or, rather, off) do you make Utopia interesting, when all society's ills have been resolved, and all misery is at worst optional?

This is the central conundrum that Iain M. Banks has been grappling with in all of his Culture novels. And Excession is perhaps his most explicit examination of that question to date, even though it was published way back in 1996.

In Banks' parlance, an "excession" is something that comes from outside the star-spanning Culture's comfortable context—something excessive, beyond the pale. Something that may be beyond even the Culture's considerable ability to manage.

As the novel opens, it's been hundreds of years since the Culture has faced anything even slightly threatening. So, when a ship run by the Zetetic Elench discovers a star that seems older than the universe itself, the news引发了 a typically chaotic reaction.

Various elements of the Culture and other Galactic small-c cultures prepare for contact, for cooptation, and... for war. Just in case.

The outcome is by no means certain, and this is one of the significant strengths of this complicated novel.

Looking back, what I liked most about Excession wasn't the grand sweep of its space battles, nor the sheer scale of the universe Banks has constructed, although I liked those too.

It wasn't the witty banter between Minds and meat either—there was actually less of that than I would have liked.

The novel did seem a bit too dry at times, with a bit too much telling and not enough showing.

It wasn't even the Laumeresque aliens known as the Affronters, though they were often used for comic effect and quite effectively.

No, the parts of this book that I most appreciated in the end were the ones where Banks shows that even in a world of physical plenty, where death is a choice, human beings can still find ways to be miserable.

This is seen in small ways, like Dajeil Gelian's lonely vigil and Gestra Ishmethit's self-imposed exile.

Very few authors can blend the universal and the personal as well as Banks. There's real depth and introspection here, which can easily be overlooked amid all the excitement.

Banks is always at or near the top of my to-read list, and this book is no exception.

After falling in love with Peter Kenny's performance in The Player of Games, I knew I was going to read the entire Culture series in Audiobook form. This has been a great decision up until "Excession".

Banks is a great writer and Kenny is a great narrator, so the failing is mostly on me. However, I really struggled to stay focused on this story for a variety of reasons.

This is the first Culture book that does not have a main point of view character. It is more of an ensemble piece. Granted, we spent more time with Gaynar Half-Owen (I'm sure that is not the correct spelling, but that is what I'm going with!), but compared to our other viewpoint characters, he is a little underwritten. There are a huge cast of names to keep track of, and most of these are "minds", sentient AI ships with quirky names. The problem with every ship having a quirky name is that it is impossible to remember which ship did or said what. Well, except "Meatfucker" - who could forget good ol' Meatfucker? All of the communication between ships starts with a long sequence of coordinates before each sentence, which Kenny delivers in a kind of sing-song voice. This became like an automatic cue for my brain to wonder what I was going to watch on Netflix next and whether Ada Palmer might marry me if I composed my fan letter oh-so-perfectly. Which is to say that my mind wandered a hell of a lot during this audiobook.

A Culture story about the Minds and a Big Dumb Object is something I am very interested in, but the format and subtleties of the plot kept me from really enjoying this. Too often it felt like homework. After I had finished, I had to go and read up online to make sure I got everything I was supposed to. (I hadn't) It makes me feel better that a lot of people who read the paper book also struggled to follow everything going on. I'm not sure whether it was good or bad writing that frequently in the story, a bunch of incomprehensible text would go by and then one of the human characters would just outright ask "what is going on" and we would get a sort of cliff notes version of what had just transpired.

Banks is great at writing aliens and alien diplomacy, and I thought the Affront were a fine addition to his pantheon. As much as I wanted to get inside the mind of the Minds, I found myself enjoying the story most when it honed in on the Affront rather than another side plot with nondescript humans and Minds.

("Excession" is an interesting story about an "Outside context problem" where the Culture, mighty as they are, are like ants to the next class of beings. It was just a real brain strain to pull out all of the details.)

July 2021 update:

Eight years after posting this review, I'm still bombarded with comments from outraged dudebros and the occasional enabling woman. They claim I had the wrong feelings about the book and no right to express them publicly. If you can judge a man by his friends, you can surely judge an author by his fans. At this point, I'm so thoroughly disgusted with the mere concept of Iain M Banks that I break out in hives whenever I see his name in print.

How dare I not understand that this allegedly feminist and enlightened man created an alien pro-rape culture as an obvious sign that they are despicable and thus the bad guys! It's not as if we're surrounded by human male cultures that are exactly the same, and which these assholes have no issue with (football teams, the military, fraternities, Hollywood, the music industry, etc., ad nauseam). In these cultures, men objectify and demean women and brag about very likely non-consensual sexual conquests to assert their manliness to other men who are equally concerned about manliness. Women aren't allowed to read fifty pages of this drivel and call it out in public. Oh no. The so-called Very Excellently Super Feminist Guys Who Are Really The Experts on Feminism have decreed that encountering a plethora of red flags early on means you must endure hundreds more pages of them before warning other potential readers.

Future comments along those lines will simply be deleted and blocked.

~~~~~

I gave up around page 50.

After being introduced to a woman character who chose to be pregnant for 40 years, and then an emissary from a nearby alien civilization where all-male representatives publicly boast about how many females they've impregnated through rape, I was seriously turned off.

Every woman I've ever known can't wait to be un-pregnant by the 8th month. A woman who willingly chooses to be pregnant for 40 years? No swollen ankles, no sore back, no heartburn, no strange skin problems? Did Iain Banks know any women? Did he even remotely consider asking them about this scenario for five seconds? Who in their right mind wants to be pregnant for FOUR DECADES?

And no, I can't sympathize with someone who thinks it's just fine to go around raping people, whether it's an alien or not. Thank you very much. I already live in a world with far too much rape and plenty of people willing to defend its 'naturalness'. I don't need to spend my fictional time in such a place either.

I was excited to read this author after hearing so many positive reviews. Maybe I picked the wrong book to start with, but I'm not sure if I'll bother trying again.

I don't claim to understand everything, but I liked the book.

The, hmm... resolution? It reminds me a bit of Melancholia. The characters are nice, and everyone gets a happy ending.

You are either cultured or you are a barbarian.

It's interesting how the book manages to create such vivid characters and a story that keeps you engaged. The resolution, although it has some similarities to Melancholia, also has its own unique charm. Each character's journey is well-developed, and seeing them all achieve a happy ending is quite satisfying.

As for the statement "You are either cultured or you are a barbarian," it makes you think about what it means to be cultured. Is it simply having knowledge of art, literature, and history? Or is it something more? Maybe it's about how we treat others and how we approach life.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story with well-developed characters and a thought-provoking theme.

It's truly a rare occurrence that I find myself having to assign a one-star rating to a book that I didn't actually despise. However, Banks is a paradoxical writer.

The writing in "Excession" is, without a doubt, of a high caliber. The characters, even those that are sentient ships on a massive scale, often have a certain allure that keeps the reader engaged.

Nonetheless, this book is marred by several fatal flaws. I can't in good conscience recommend it even to a die-hard fan of Banks' science fiction works (unless one has an overwhelming desire to understand the inner workings of the Mind ships).

The plot is disjointed, with an excessive number of ship characters. As a result, half the time, the reader is left scratching their head, unsure of what exactly is happening. The conflicts that are introduced fail to generate sufficient tension, causing the story to trudge along without a sense of urgency. For instance, it's almost a foregone conclusion that the Affront will be neatly dealt with by the Culture.

As for the Excession itself, quite frankly, half the time, its actions and nature are completely incomprehensible. And the revelations regarding the two main characters, their convoluted love affair, sex changes, and attempted murder, etc., are needlessly complex and lack real emotional depth.

Moreover, the ending is disappointingly lackluster. Virtually nothing of significance occurs! After all the build-up, all we get is a brief epilogue that simply states the Excession has determined the Culture is not yet ready for the advanced societies it represents.

Banks is clearly capable of much better than this. There were some truly excellent ideas within the pages of this book, but they were unfortunately buried beneath a horribly convoluted plot.

Foolish child!
Make all haste.

A BDO novel set in the Culture universe? Will the law of diminishing returns come into play? The Culture already abounds with so much strangeness and wonder. How much value could an artefact bring to this intoxicating mix?
There is a possibility that the Culture universe is not well-suited for BDO sense of wonder stories. Another possibility is the dilution of impact.
Let’s try and review this thing.
The drone felt calm, thinking as coldly and detachedly as it could for those few moments about the background to its current predicament. It was prepared, it was ready, and it was no ordinary machine…
The novel wasn’t exactly what I had envisaged, but that’s not a huge surprise. It mainly focuses on the reaction of the Culture, specifically a group of ship minds, to the appearance of the Excession in the title (also known as an Outside Context Problem). There is a lot of strategizing and build-up as events are set in motion to deal with the artefact and determine if it’s a threat. Ship-mind psychology and politics take center stage, which sets this story apart from the previous novels. Moreover, there are factions of ship minds using the reappearance of the Excession to further their own agendas. Expect conspiracies and fireworks.
This was different. Nothing like this had been seen in the galaxy since the worst days of the Idiran war five hundred years earlier, and even then not on such a scale. This was terrifying.
I enjoyed Excession but found it a challenging read. At first, I didn’t strongly identify with the ship minds and their techspeak (which is quite innovative). Fortunately, I was able to get into a rhythm and untangle the complexities of the various sub-plots. As for the artefact itself, its capabilities are rather interesting and potentially devastating. It isn’t a big dumb object by definition as there’s nothing dumb about it.
In the end, it’s a morality play. Everyone means well even though they are at odds with each other. Typical Banks, with lots of grey areas. Excession delves deep into the psychology of the minds and their capabilities. As such, there is no Cheradenine Zakalwe or Jernau Morat Gurgeh (or their equivalent) here. Actually, due to the hedonistic nature of the Culture societies, the human characters that do feature are petty, churlish, and shallow. In fact, the human drama component of Excession is so overly melodramatic that it’s the reason I deducted a star (self-perpetuating pregnancy? really?).
Here was the vast enfolding darkness, the sheer astringent emptiness of space colossal, writ wide and deep across the entire sensorial realm; an unending presagement of consummate grace and meaninglessness together.
When the book takes off, it does so spectacularly. Space combat showcases the awesome might of the Culture ships (hint: it’s impressive). There are also some amazing constructs, such as God’shole (an Affronter ring habitat with a black hole at its hub), Pittance (a chunk of expelled planet core with gigantic hangars filled with latent warships), or the vast stepped habitat Tier (original builders: unknown). This is a bit of a throwback to the sprawling sense of wonder of Consider Phlebas.
What they had all agreed they would prefer would be to be woken only as a prelude to joining the Culture's ultimate Sublimation, if and when that became the society's choice. Until then they would be content to slumber in their dark halls, the war gods of past wrath implicitly guarding the peace of the present and the security of the future.
It's a difficult book to rate: sub-plots veer off in unexpected directions and focus on seemingly unrelated events at odd intervals. In the end, everything comes together, but it’s not a smooth ride. It’s not meant to be. With so many ship minds in the story, it’s a challenge to remember who is who and what faction they belong to. Having said that, Banks does go to some lengths to establish individual traits for the minds (consider, for example, the naming conventions).
Despite what might sound like criticism, it’s actually a twisty but rewarding story that significantly adds to Culture lore. There’s more than enough intrigue and action to keep me happy.
Recommended for Culture junkies: 4 stars should be sufficient. Casual readers should probably start elsewhere.
Don't be so naive as to imagine that Minds don't employ strong-arm methods now and again, or that in a matter resounding with such importance any ship would think twice about sacrificing another consciousness for such a prize.

The good:

I truly relished delving deeper into the inner workings of the Culture's minds. The intricacies, the debates, their pastimes, disagreements, and moral evaluations... That was undoubtedly the pièce de résistance of the story and what compelled me to read until the very end.

The less good:

The first time I perused a book in this series where an alien culture had a sexist patriarchy that genetically modified its females to an even more disadvantageous position than before, while taking pleasure in the extreme torture of other sentient beings as a hobby, I found it captivating and relevant. However, by now, I would be astonished to come across a Culture book that didn't feature a sexist patriarchy that genetically engineered its females into a worse state while revelling in the extreme torture of other sentients for its amusement. Also growing tiresome are the unlikable male protagonists who make a huge fuss about being all male, all straight, and totally straight, yes sirree, while admiring those so-called "whee, torturefest!" cultures for being so ~~authentic~~ or whatever. And the female socialites who all speak like a caricature of a Valley Girl. The stodgy old drones getting irate about the aforementioned two types of characters not doing things promptly, while the humans grin at them and consider them unreasonable and dull.

I suppose what I'm trying to convey is that when those tropes emerged in Player of Games, I thought they were present because it was the kind of story that book was about. But the more Culture novels I read, the more it appears that they're just the default elements that are tossed into these books whenever something is required to fill in the gaps between the truly interesting portions of the story.

You'll notice that I still gave this four stars. It was an outstanding book in many respects and kept me up late reading it. But it's exasperating to witness such a brilliant setting with excellent writing being constantly weighed down by these tired, overused, and unnecessary aspects that are becoming less engaging with each successive encounter. I loathe having to skip over approximately half of the text to reach the good parts of the book.

As a concept, the Culture novels are truly wonderful. They present a captivating and imaginative universe that explores various aspects of society, technology, and human nature.

However, at times the narrative can crumble under the weight of drawn out plots and overly detailed moments. This is evident in Excession by Iain M. Banks. In this novel, the Culture faces a threat unlike any it has known before. There is an object or species with superior technology that poses both a terminal threat to the Culture and an opportunity to evolve beyond four-dimensional life.

This concept is really cool, as it combines elements of danger and potential growth. It makes the reader wonder about the possibilities and consequences that such a threat could bring.

Read the rest of my review on Scrivler to find out more about my thoughts on this novel and the Culture series as a whole.