Feersum Endjinn

Rating:
Summary: Read the book, not the reviews...
Review: This is the kind of book where you should read the book rather than the reviews. The less you know about the story the more delighted you will be when you read the book. Like all Banks books, at least those that I have read, this book tells us a story of great complexity. It ranges from the highest levels of society to the lowest. It is about petty minds and dire needs. It is a story about transendence.

Rating:
Summary: Either Brilliant or Dreadful
Review: This is the type of unconventionally constructed novel that will split people into two camps, as you can see here in the customer reviews. Some will think it's an absolutely brilliant powerhouse of creativity, while others will consider it dreadfully self-indulgent drivel. When it comes to this novel by Iain Banks, it appears to me that neither of those extreme opinions is right or wrong and it all depends on the reader's particular mindset. I place myself in the middle because I can see both sides of the argument. On the brilliant side, this novel does have an especially strange doomsday scenario brought on by a slow-moving astronomical disaster. The despots in control are more concerned with keeping power than helping humanity avoid the catastrophe, while those who have plans for salvation are branded as dissidents, and imprisoned and tortured in bizarre virtual planes of existence. In this last regard, Banks has created some great examples of virtual vs. base reality, with strange psychedelic twists on space and time that show a real affinity for the classic mind-expansion SF of the late 1960s.

Unfortunately, there is also a dreadful side to this book, especially when the psychedelic feats of Banks' imagination overwhelm the main plot as described above, and the book gets bogged down in the literary equivalent of jam band noodling. And when it comes to the character who speaks phonetically (and based on a thick Scottish brogue to boot), some readers find this to be brilliant wordplay by Banks. Well I find it especially dreadful. The phonetic "prose" is so thick and inconsistent that it took me forever trying to figure out the words being said, as the plot and characters were buried by the sheer drudgery of trying to read. In the end I had little understanding of what this character really had to do with the rest of the story, and this contributes to an unsatisfying and inconclusive climax to the book. That's what brings this potentially awe-inspiring novel back down to the average level, as the brilliance can't quite shake off the dreadfulness. [~doomsdayer520~]

Rating:
Summary: MMMmmm
Review: Trippy - like Neuromancer meets Dun

Rating:
Summary: Dark, intriguing, entertaining
Review: You need to check out Iain M. Banks if you are into the following: the dark atmosphere and weird science of cyberpunk; science fiction that makes you think; strange and peculiar characters; a well-written, absorbing tale. It's storytellers like Iain M. Banks that make science fiction worth reading.