Rating: 
Summary: Look no further !
Review: The setting is Masaq; an Orbital (a man-made space station housing millions of people and machines), where the light of two exploding suns hundreds of light years away can now be seen. The first is celebrated with a festival of music by all on the Orbital. But behind all the celebrations, a grizzly and sinister plot is being played out, which would mean the inhabitants of Masaq never seeing the second light they are all eagerly waiting for.
Look To Windward, along with all the other books written by Iain M. Banks is staggering to say the least. Once again you're taken into the seemingly limitless breadth and depth of Banks' mind, with the subtleness and almost poetic nature that only he has. The story is cleverly cut up and rearranged in a manner true to a Tarantino film, which makes the story slowly reveal itself, to brim up to a timeless climax. Read this book, and you will be totally enriched by the experience.
Rating:
Summary: Death by Water
Review: The title of Banks' latest Culture novel comes from the 4th part of T.S. Eliot's 1922 landmark poem, "The Wasteland." The full text of lines 325-326:Gentile or jew,
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. Those familiar with Banks' work will immediately recognize the two words immediately following "look to windward" as the title of another Banks' Culture novel. What's going on here? Not every SF author can get away with titling his books from one of the 20th century's greatest poems. A lot of them have the chutzpah, but can't bring their word craft up to their pretensions. Banks can. While _Look to Windward_ doesn't have the machine gun pacing or extraordinary violence of earlier Banks' works, it does offer remarkably good writing, generally good characterization, and a further display of Banks' astonishing imaginative powers. Masaq' Orbital and its billions of residents are seeing the supernovae from suns destroyed by the Idirans near the end of the Idiran War 800 years earlier. The Mind - the self-aware AI that runs Masaq' was a fighter in that war. Billions died, some at the hand of that Mind. More recently, Special Circumstances, The Culture's meddling, would-be uplifters of the disadvantaged, had another of their surreptitious interventions go horribly wrong, and 5 billion Chelgrians died. Look to windward, indeed. Masaq' Orbital's Mind has commissioned Ziller, an expatriate Chelgrian, to compose a symphony for the occasion of the second supernova. In the meantime, the Chelgrians have sent Major Quilan, a veteran of the civil wars triggered by The Culture, to Masaq', ostensibly to persuade Ziller to return to his home world. The real reason is more horrific: the destruction of the Mind that runs Masaq'. Major Quilan and the Chelgrians who support his have the help of mysterious benefactors, demonstrating, perhaps, that The Culture is still its own worst enemy. In Major Quilan, Banks has created his most memorable character of The Culture novels. Tormented, ambivalent, manipulated and empathetic, he stands in stark contrast to the indulgent and snobbish, if immensely talented, Ziller. By seeing two very different Chelgrians, we better understand them and the reactions of those around them. As in any Banks novel, there are surprises galore, and it is next to impossible to identify the goods guys or the bad guys. Don't expect the slam-bang excitement of _Consider Phelbas_ or the pacing of _Excession_. This is a novel of revenge. But as Eliot was at pains to point out in "The Wasteland," PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool. Death cares not at all for the minor victories of life. One death is no more or less than a dozen or 5 billion. Major Quilan's willingness - zeal - to die, sadly mirrored in the front pages of today's news, is ultimately futile, as Banks warns us from the very title of this novel. This is a very good book, literate without pretension. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not excellent, Culture novel
Review: This book is not on par with Use of Weapons or Excession. With that said, it is an entertaining read exposing all the elements that you come to expect from a Banks' Culture novel. If you are new to the Culture, start with another (Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, or Use of Weapons) and save this one for later.
Rating:
Summary: Slow but depressing.
Review: This one gets off to a very slow start, and bogs down even further in the middle. It has some of the sad and depressing mood of "Use of Weapons",but not the excitement--there are a fair number of characters, but they nearly _all_ seem more pushed, nay, nudged, by events, unfamiliar others, or their passive mental depression, than their taking any active actions on their own--not what we've come to expect of Banks' protagonists.Oddly, the only one I could relate to emotionally, was a hub "Mind". Even the drones are a bit on the dull side here. Also, I didn't like the excessive emphasis on some metaphysical issues, "magical" nanotech, and mental manipulations, which stuff stayed more in the background in other books making the Culture sci-tech more plausible to dullards like us. But...It's a good enough Culture novel, and I did enjoy it! Shows a good picture of normal day-to-day life in a Culture orbital--the serious and the silly. Hard to put down. Definitely recommended for even the mildest Culture fans.
Rating:
Summary: Slow but depressing.
Review: This one gets off to a very slow start, and bogs down even further in the middle. It has some of the sad and depressing mood of "Use of Weapons",but not the excitement--there are a fair number of characters, but they nearly _all_ seem more pushed, nay, nudged, by events, unfamiliar others, or their passive mental depression, than their taking any active actions on their own--not what we've come to expect of Banks' protagonists.Oddly, the only one I could relate to emotionally, was a hub "Mind". Even the drones are a bit on the dull side here. Also, I didn't like the excessive emphasis on some metaphysical issues, "magical" nanotech, and mental manipulations, which stuff stayed more in the background in other books making the Culture sci-tech more plausible to dullards like us. But...It's a good enough Culture novel, and I did enjoy it! Shows a good picture of normal day-to-day life in a Culture orbital--the serious and the silly. Hard to put down. Definitely recommended for even the mildest Culture fans.
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular banks novel
Review: This would be a good introduction to Iain Banks, if you're new to his books. Probably this and Excession are his two most accessible books. The book starts with the description of an Orbital. Orbitals are rings (see Freeman Dyson), millions of kilometers in circumference, which orbit a sun. The surface area of these habitats are gigantic. Think populations in the billions. As Banks describes this majestic Orbital, we begin to learn more about the people on it, and the background of the Idiran war (see _Consider Phlebas_, also by Banks). The core values of Banks are here: Betrayal, Protagonists you really wish you didn't like, Death (lots of it), the Culture and its Minds, and high and hard science fiction. Perhaps my favorite item from the novel is the notion of the Airspheres: large (planet-sized) habitats in which reside multi-kilometer-long dirigible-style creatures, millenia old. As is typical, Banks even develops these "characters" to an extent that we begin to wish for more information about them. The pages keep turning, and you're left at the end wondering just what hit you. There are so many different plots and subplots that each could be developed into their own respective novels. Definitely recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Another good one from Banks
Review: While I agree that this is not quite the excellent read as Consider Phlebas or Use of Weapons, I found it to be highly engaging and easily superior to 99% of this year's sci fi. After all, Phlebas and Weapons are some of the best space operas ever written, in my opinion. We can't expect Banks to churn out a masterpiece at each go. I will say that a lot of the pleasure I experienced reading this was in revisiting the Culture universe. Banks' trademark inventiveness should excite any sci-fi reader. Avoid the Publisher's Weekly review if possible, it has a fairly large spoiler.
Rating:
Summary: consider...windward
Review: While not a sequel to 'Consider Phlebas', this book results from the consequences of certain events that happened in the idiran/culture war of that novel, namely, the destruction of a couple of stars.
Here, Banks has weaved another tale of intrigue, mystery, drama, suspense, and action that is rivalled only by previpus efforts such as 'Consider Phlebas','Use of Weapons' or 'Against a dark background'. The characters are troubled, as usual!, some have to go to extraordinary lengths to not only 'beat the baddies' but to also survive. (One character in particular has quite a unique way of beating the odds-at the end of the book of course.)
The plot is much simpler than some of Iain's work, but is no less riviting. And the innovative ideas still abound.
This is an author who is at his best and is still getting better, and this one of the best sci-fi books written in a few years!
Rating:
Summary: consider...windward
Review: While not a sequel to 'Consider Phlebas', this book results from the consequences of certain events that happened in the idiran/culture war of that novel, namely, the destruction of a couple of stars.
Here, Banks has weaved another tale of intrigue, mystery, drama, suspense, and action that is rivalled only by previpus efforts such as 'Consider Phlebas','Use of Weapons' or 'Against a dark background'. The characters are troubled, as usual!, some have to go to extraordinary lengths to not only 'beat the baddies' but to also survive. (One character in particular has quite a unique way of beating the odds-at the end of the book of course.)
The plot is much simpler than some of Iain's work, but is no less riviting. And the innovative ideas still abound.
This is an author who is at his best and is still getting better, and this one of the best sci-fi books written in a few years!
Rating:
Summary: Finally ...
Review: Yes, finally we see Banks portray the Culture as something
other than the civilised good guys and other races as something
other than simple primitives in need of the Culture's high-
handed intervention. Banks also expresses the sentiment,
implied previously in Excession, that the Culture is in
danger of stagnating, and also offers a shot in the arm,
hopefully to be revealed in a sequel. In Excession (which I found to be faster-paced), the
primitives in question were the "hearty but horrible" (sic)
Affronters. However, in "Look to Windward" we are presented
with two Chelgrians.Two different characters with much more
depth. This made "Look to Windward" very rich in comparison
to "Excession" which only presented the Affronters as "the
Culture's Burden". Quilan, in particular is a noble and
complex character, made mature by his experiences, his
suffering and bereavement. His interaction with the
comparatively simple-minded amiability of the Culture
citizens around him was nicely assayed, and poignant
when you bear in mind that they are arguably responsible
for his anguish. Imagine how poor the story would have
been if he had been presented only as a terrorist. In addition we have samples of the elder races: the Oskendari
inhabitants and their wonderful strangeness, and the very
patient Homomdan ambassador. They, along with the endearing
Uagen Zlepe, illuminated a bigger picture of the Culture's
place in the Galaxy, while hinting at the powers of the
unknown forces gathering against them. I loved this book. Even the smug complacency of the
Culture added to the story. The Culture needs a wake-up
call, and I want a sequel!
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