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Summary: Thinly Veiled Meditation on the Intelligence Community
Review: Read this book: then learn something about the history of the CIA. This is a powerful novel: finely written and relentlessly intelligent. As all science fiction, this book allows Banks to deal with problems and concerns of his culture, nicely transported to a futuristic realm. I can only recommend that you find this book, read it, then read a bit about the craft of international espionage and 'dirty tricks'. In particular, the U.S. in Central America. Grand book.
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Summary: A tactical genius suffers for redemption of a hidden past.
Review: "Cheradinine Zakalwe" should be spray painted on brick walls of war zones, a modern "Kilroy was here". Banks is the paradoxical antiwar novellist with a taste for gruesome bloodiness that made his career with the "Wasp Factory". In "Use of Weapons", Iain Banks takes the reader through twin storylines, telling the tales of Zakalwe's past and his present, revealling why he continues to serve the Culture, and what he is trying to escape. Banks employs his wit in the sarcastic banter of AI drones and humorous ship names while leading one through labyrinthine mayhem of wars we'd thought forgotten. No atrocity is left hidden, no battle of the 19th or 20th century ignored for its cleverness or cruelty. "Use Of Weapons" is about war and suffering and redemption of the soul. It is not for children or those ignorant of history. It is about the futility of conflict, and the dirty tricks employed to win. This is Banks best work. It ranks alongside the great postmodern novels as Gibson's "Neuromancer" and PK Dick's "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?". If you can't cry by the end you'd best consider getting an exorcism or extensive therapy. Review By Marshall Motley.
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Summary: Futuristic mercenary working for a powerful benevolent race
Review: I was first introduced to Iain Banks by reading his book "Consider Phlebas". Of the space science fiction genre, I found his detail and depth of imagery astounding. I recommend that book to sci-fi fans. "Use of Weapons" could be simply described as being about a futuristic mercenary doing deeds for a powerful benevolent race. But this is not a simple book. Two story lines interweave in alternating chapters. The first is traditional, moving forward in time, following one plot line. The other goes backward in time, each chapter number counting backward as well, and touches on past events that increasingly explain events and people being followed in the upward counting chapters. This manner of story telling certainly requires a great attention to detail by the reader, but the reward at the end is worth it, as we finally discover what really is going on. After finishing the book I found myself re-reading many sections, rediscovering many things I had missed. I will be looking for what seems to be a sequel, "States of War".
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Summary: A Stunning Epic
Review: This is THE best Sci-Fi book, and possibly one of the best books, ever written. Why? Because it is moving, it is about trust and betrayal, love, honour and dishonour.. Every one of your emotions will be called into play, your hatred, your compassion... The beauty of these distant worlds, the lives of the characters, it has everything a good novel should, and then a few sci-fi touches which serve only to enhance the plots and storylines. Absolutely Fabulous! Beg or borrow a copy from anywhere. Steal it if you must (but give it back afterwards) This is a book that redefines "epic" and "masterpiece", proving that science-fiction is no longer the shabby runt of literature. Buy it!
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Summary: One of Banks's three best SF Novels
Review: I read Use of Weapons a few months ago and note a lack of reviews of this novel. I apologise for the resulting sketchiness of some of my details. All of Banks's "Culture" novels are set in a very high tech, predominantly human society whose chief concerns are ethical rather than material. This makes for a very interesting setting, and Banks does interesting things with it. The central character (his barely pronounceable name escapes me) is an undercover operative with a shady past, and his current exploits (moving forward) are interleaved with revelations as to his shady past (moving backward). This character's job is to efficiently facilitate changes to a lower-tech society that is going bad (in the Culture's humble opinion). Banks also does interesting stuff with technology, in an off-hand kind of way. A number of standard SF cliches are refreshingly absent. AIs of all sorts are in many cases simply superior [intellectually] to humans, emotional, and have full human ri
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Summary: Love those twists
Review: If I ever write a critical summary of Banks' novels, I would have to title it "Beyond the Twist," for it is exactly that which is Banks' work. Where another author might come up with some of the same details, Banks makes each book his own by embodying a twist in it. This is most apparent in The Wasp Factory, where the entire novel hinges on a single fact about the narrator that is hidden from reader and narrator until the end. Similarly, Use of Weapons also relies on such a twist, but here it is hidden from the reader and the other characters; the protagonist knows the secret, and it is this that drives him and makes him complex--as well as providing for the story. On rec.arts.sf.written they were discussing a particular description in this story, calling it the single most disgusting thing they had ever read. I don't know if I'm jaded, but I didn't find it so. Disgusting, yes, and nothing that I would want to see, but it was fictitious (although possible). I can think of any number of things that actually occurred in the last year that I would consider more disgusting, possibly because they weren't fiction. And I guess that's my dividing line.
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Summary: Not your typical Sci-Fi... it's a whole lot better!
Review: "Use of Weapons" is not your typical sci fi easy reading. Iain M Banks expects you to work harder than most authors of this genre, but rewards you for it. If you haven't read any of his other "Culture" novels, some of the concepts in this book can seem a little daunting. Persist for a wonderful window on this series, however.
One particularly interesting aspect is that Banks is adept at mixing futuristic technology such as spaceships, forcefields and awesome weapons with basic human qualities. Even more than other sci-fi authors I've read, you feel you can relate to the motivations of his characters due to the common human themes.
Greta holiday reading!
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Summary: One of Banks's Best!
Review: I just finished reading Use Of Weapons, and I have this horrible sinking feeling that I shall be reading it again very soon. The book has a very Bankian structure, with the prologue happening somewhere in the middle of his life, and then the chapters that advance the plot alternating with his mercenary adventures going backwards until they reach the moment with The Chair, and The Ship... and the moment when Zakalwe became Zakalwe.
The structure and pacing of this novel is quite similar to that of Banks's first book, The Wasp Factory. The ending twist is not as well handled, but the horror event that precipitates is every bit as disturbing, perhaps even more horrific, than the one in The Wasp Factory, and mercifully the twist in Use of Weapons is left doubly ambiguous. We may never know who was telling the truth. And that's probably for the best.
Use of Weapons is a literary masterpiece, Banks can draw pictures of misery, horror, indulgence and excess with a minimum of effort, and he succeeds somehow in making it all fit together. It's not the clockwork mastery of Bujold, but something more organic, more humane, even while you realize that his underlying themes are as ruthless, vicious, and inhuman as any you can imagine.
A lot of Banks's later works, like the almost irrelevant Excession, don't deserve much attention. But Use of Weapons is Banks at his best. The Wasp Factory had a happy ending, of a sort; I can't say that about Use of Weapons. The Wasp Factory stayed with me for a long time, though, and made me feel depressed and horrified at the state of the world, despite the discoveries its plucky and interesting protagonist went through. I highly recommend Use of Weapons for the same reason I recommend The Wasp Factory, but be prepared to be depressed for a long time afterwards.
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Summary: A delicious shudder
Review: Of the three Culture novels I've read, I'd say "Use of Weapons" is my favorite. A little disorienting at first, with distinctly non-linear storytelling. The main storyline follows a mission of the meanest badass covert ops agent (working for the good guys, of course) in the galaxy. This is interspersed with flashbacks receding in time. As I'm reading, I'm thinking, that final flashback (the earliest one on the timeline) is going to be really horrific; something involving a white chair that makes our "hero" scream when he lets his guard down and allows the memory to bubble up. Well, Banks does not disappoint, although I wonder about the mental state of anybody who would dream up something like that. Then, toss the final twist into the main timeline to make the secret of the chair even worse, and you have in the end a Grade-A horror story to give you bad dreams for a week.
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Summary: Haunting
Review: There's not much I can add to the comments that have already been made about this book. It's brilliantly written, if a little slower-paced than some of Banks' other Culture books. This is definitely a book that will benefit from a second (and third) reading, just so that the reader can pick up the full texture of the thing. I was not, however, surprised by the revelation at the end of the book, and had actually been expecting it for some time. Definitely a book I highly recommend.
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