ALT.SF4M

  Amusements 3/25/98

   • j********o@***.com
     26/03/1998 00:00:000 UTC

     Book Review: "Excession" - latest in Banks' Culture Series.

     The plot is the now-cliched yet still promising scenario of a mysterious

     super-dimensional structure appearing in the middle of nowhere in a
     multi-polar

     High Interstellar Milieu. Teams are scrambled to investigate, fleets
     mobilized

     to lay claim, war threatens, intruiges erupt. Basically the same as in

     Sheffield's Heritage Universe/Convergence and who knows how many others.
     I

     found it good but disappointing: like most of its nest-mates, it was all

     build-up and no delivery (only a small spoiler, really - it became
     evident to

     me about half-way through that the momentum being built wouldn't
     actually go

     anywhere - although I still hoped against hope for a decent kick-ass
     space

     battle as the portion of the book remaining in my right hand dwindled
     ever

     slimmer...) Nonetheless, I think it's the best Culture novel yet! We get
     an

     insight into the minds and the process that really runs things (a little
     too

     Usenetty for my taste!), we're never consigned to the third-world, and
     there is

     a steady stream of cool little battles. The writing is considerably less
     cheap

     and exploitive than Banks can be and the book is rich in the series'
     cool

     tech-speak, which tends to form only the book-ends of the other stories.

     These weakness of these sorts of stories tends to arise in part from the

     writers' unwillingness to shake up their milieu as well as a lack of
     nerve and

     vision in imagining the nature of the "excission/Outside Context
     Problem" or

     enigma. We see a related faltering in apotheosis stories like
     "Neuromancer"

     and "Marooned in Realtime" (both vastly better novels, although in
     different

     ways) - either the enigma is disappointing in itself or conveniently
     beyond

     mortal comprehension. Here the enigma is pretty close to being a
     McGuffin (for

     me, an extremely derogatory concept which embodies my compliant in a
     single

     word) in a story ultimately about personal manipulation and political

     conspiracy, the latter disappointingly reminiscent of "Five Days in
     May," say.

     But again, probably the best Culture book I've read. Basically Good.

     Gorno

     Re: the new movie "City of Angels." It's ironic... I distinctly remember

     Perrianne observing that, although she liked "Wings of Desire," she
     found it to

     be too "artsy" and "intellectual" and felt that what it really needed
     was "the

     big-time Hollywood treatment!"...