Feersum Endjinn

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: A brain chilling, page peeling, far too short tale. Banks keeps me hooked.

Rating:
Summary: He's Scottish
Review: A lot of the reviewers seem confused by Bascules strange language. It is I can reveal fairly accurate phonetic Scots. I talk like that myself, though somewhat less garrulous.

5 stars-- the book is a masterpiece, as are several other Banks novels.

Rating:
Summary: Astoundingly good
Review: After reading Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons, I knew Iain "M." Banks was good, but Feersum Endjinn is simply astounding.The setting for this novel is one of the best I have encountered in sci-fi, a far future world where radical hi-tech has evolved to the point of magic. The virtual worlds are equally beautifully rendered, the characterization is excellent and the action is breathless and non-stop. The dyslexic hero showcases Banks' wit, and the first person passages are well worth the extra effort to decipher. READ THIS BOOK

Rating:
Summary: Astoundingly good
Review: After reading Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons, I knew Iain "M." Banks was good, but Feersum Endjinn is simply astounding. The setting for this novel is one of the best I have encountered in sci-fi, a far future world where radical hi-tech has evolved to the point of magic. The virtual worlds are equally beautifully rendered, the characterization is excellent and the action is breathless and non-stop. The dyslexic hero showcases Banks' wit, and the first person passages are well worth the extra effort to decipher. READ THIS BOOK

Rating:
Summary: Not too usual, not too unusual.
Review: After reading Finnegan's Wake (given, by a completely different author), I found Feersum Endjinn rather easy to read. True, about one fourth of the book is written in a phonetical jumble. It's making sense of that jumble and seeing where things are headed that make it fun to read. Much fun. I think once you understand it, you'll find it says much about our culture, or where it's headed.

Also, consider Earth by David Brin.

Rating:
Summary: Bloody good!!!!!!!!
Review: Although Banks fails to use the spellchecker function of his word-processor, he has written a novel that has kept me awake until three o'clock in the morning. With his richly descriptive landscapes and charachters, and his amazing plots, Banks has written a story that I believe will become a masterpiece, in time. [e-mail] (Lindsay Evans.

Rating:
Summary: Feersumly gd
Review: At the time of the action of this intriguing novel (which occurs over a couple of days, or several decades, depending on how you measure it), the Earth of the very far future is inhabited by the descendants of those who stayed when most humans traveled to the stars in the "Diaspora". Earth is dominated by an aristocratic class, based in a huge castle, so large that the highest tower extends into space, and the King`s residence, a large "palace", is contained within a chandelier of the greater castle. Ordinary humans are allowed 8 normal lifespans (copies apparently made of their brains` contents at the time of death), after which they are allowed 8 additional "lives" in a sort of virtual reality maintained in the global computer net, after which their personality becomes a component of the AI complex which "is" the net (or "crypt" as Banks cleverly calls it.) At the time of the action, Earth is threatened both by the Encroachment, a dust cloud which will swallow the Sun in a few centuries, and by a virus which is infecting the Crypt. Possible solutions to these problems were left by the humans of the Diaspora, but the means of access to these solutions has been forgotten.

The story is told in four threads, following four main characters: a mysterious, nameless woman, who is soon revealed as a messenger from the Crypt; the King`s Chief Scientist, Hortis Gadfium, who is part of a conspiracy which has been trying to discover the hidden solution to the problem of the Encroachment; an aristocrat and loyal general of the King`s, Alandre Sessine, who is on the point of discovering that the King and his advisors are obstructing progress towards solving the problem of the Encroachment, apparently because such progress is a threat to the status quo, and who is assassinated multiple times, both in real life and post-death virtual reality, for his pains; and finally, Bascule, a young, innocent "teller", that is, one who communicates with the Crypt as part of his job, who is also "recruited" by the Crypt to help find the solution to the encroachment problem.

These four threads are soon seen to be quests which will converge on each other. Much time is spent exploring both the physical and virtual reality of this far future Earth. The resolution is logical and satisfying, and the last line of the book is marvelous.

The strength of this book is the colorful presentation of a truly strange future world. I also found the "Virtual Reality" of the Crypt internally convincing, in a way I often don`t (i.e. I could never really believe in William Gibson`s visions of Cyberspace.) That isn`t to say that Banks has provided rock solid scientific rationales for the elements of this future world: far from it, but he makes us happily suspend disbelief in a lot of unlikely things, partly simply by setting the story so far in the future. In addition, Banks is an excellent and audacious writer. The Bascule sections of the novel are told in a compressed prose, abbreviating words phonetically (like feersum endjinn for fearsome engine), also using numbers and symbols. This is initially difficult to follow, but I picked up on it pretty quickly, and I thought it was vital to providing Bascule an individual voice (one quite reminiscent of Holden Caulfield`s voice, I thought).

In summary, I loved this book. It is "over the top", but in a good way, and Banks makes it all work.

Rating:
Summary: shiny experiment
Review: Banks is the first writer to really experiment all the possibilities of cyberspace in novels, testing every aspect of it in its more juicy details: clock lag between simulated and real time (the hero connects himself during an very long fall to have some time to think about what to do), avatars, the endless repetition allowed by simulation, the personalization of our environment allowed in the virtual,... Gibson invented Cyberspace and begun to play with the possibilities, but Banks goes much further here. This novel is as excellent as the others of Banks, Culture or not, but in my opinion, this experimental dimension makes it a masterpiece: this novel will count. P@

Rating:
Summary: Banks' best
Review: Fast action, intricate plotting, diverse and rich characters (including, as the two best: an idiot savant and a cybernetic ant), give this book an odd and marvelous texture (and oh, did I mention its fruity bouquet?). I found this book one of Iain Bank's two best works featuring his middle initial ("Banksie" early on adopted the impenatrable nom de plume of Iain "M." Banks for his science fiction novels -- its a simple Iain Banks for his "mainstream" works). The novel is about a far future Earth, with a remenant population decended from those who opted not to leave to the stars. It combines medieval politics, after-death cyberlife, a people fallen from knowledge of the high technology that still surrounds them. Written from multiple viewpoints, a portion of the book is written in the jargon of the idiot savant previously mentioned, hence the book's title. Some found these parts of the book annoying and difficult, but I found them, after a short period of acclamation, to be the best and most wryly humerous parts of the book. sew git this book, reed tha parts liik this owt lowd, and laf yor hed off! reelie

Rating:
Summary: Is fate merely an 'engine' to be toyed with?
Review: Feersum Endjinn is simply amazing. While you are kept on a rollercoaster ride of scenes from a possible future, and scenes from people's lives, it is all interwoven in a way that is utterly irrestiable. Sort of like Gibson's books, where elements that don't quite seem to fit together initally, blend into one another with grace and form at various intersections. Questions about society, as well as personal beliefs are raised in a eloquent, but direct manner. The story keeps flow as well as keeping you wanting for more. The details scare and intrigue. The characters are alive because they have wants, needs, and more importantly, questions about their lives and things related. If you're looking for something different, refreshing, and yes, ENTERTAINING go for it!