Look to Windward

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Iain M. Banks

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Pages: 352 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 1857239695

Pub: Orbit

Pub date: 2000-08-10

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 82608

Editorial Review:

When using that middle initial M., Iain Banks writes grand space opera combining galactic scope with twisty, tricky probes into the darkest secrets of human and other minds. Look to Windward revisits the utopian but ruthless interstellar Culture introduced in Consider Phlebas, exploring the complex aftermath of a rare Culture mistake--humanitarian tinkering with an unjust civilization that accidentally led to massive civil war and billions dead.
After a harrowing battle flashback, the scene shifts to one of the Culture's wonderfully landscaped, ring-shaped artificial worlds called Orbitals. A ghastly light is awaited in the sky from distant suns detonated in the war of Consider Phlebas eight centuries earlier; an occasion for sombre festivity, pyrotechnics, and a memorial symphony from exiled alien composer Ziller. Meanwhile another tortured member of Ziller's race--aggressors and victims in that more recent civil war--arrives on a mission whose dreadful nature emerges through fragments of slowly returning memory. Elsewhere, in the exuberantly imagined airsphere home of floating "behemothaurs" almost too huge to imagine, the clue to what's happening falls belatedly into inexperienced hands...

While scattering red herrings and building tension for his final burst of literal and moral fireworks, Banks shows us around the Orbital in sensuous, lyrical travelogues. Rich scenery, high living, low comedy and dangerous sports contrast with reflections on mortality and the lingering aftershock of both those wars, recalled by ravaged veterans. Look to Windward culminates with deft twists, inversions, parallels, and savage justice, as unexpected as we expect from this author. Recommended. --David Langford

Reader Reviews:

how can guilt manifest in a society of virtual immortals? (0/0 people found this helpful)

The punchline of this book is utterly unexpected and deeply humbling - I am glad I read this book, it is artfully conceived and delivered.

As satisfying as a hot bath on a cold day (3/4 people found this helpful)

This is the fourth "Culture" novel from Iain M. Banks i have read, they get easier to grasp, and more enjoyable with each addition. When you first start reading in the "Culture" group of books they can be difficult and obtuse to the point of provoking fury; they are also filled with passages and moments of shining brilliance, thats how come you might read more than one. However, after a couple you can start to find the rhythm of Bank's writing and they will become a more comfortable experiance.

This story is better balanced than i expected from his other books; it has the same wild flights of pure imagination that burst across the plot, but it also has a strong narrative line that pulls you onwards. I found i was desperate to know what was going to happen, expecting and fearing what the outcome might be. It was an example of that rarest of reading experiances, one that leaves you straight away reaching for another book to try to sustain the joy.

Brilliant (2/3 people found this helpful)

Having just read The Algabrabist by Iain Banks, I bought this because I loved his style.

Brilliant - Its again about the Culture, as previous books, but the style has matured and the variation between seroius stuff and slighted humour is ace; I love flippant Aliens!

I can't put this book down and am currently trying to find another by Banks in the same vane.

Go on, give yourself a treat! (6/6 people found this helpful)

Iain Banks has single-handedly re-invented the whole Space Opera genre, and this book is his best yet. He makes Foundation, Norstrilia and Known Space - and any other fictitious universe I have ventured into - look predictable, folksy and unimaginative.

The only drawback to reading Banks is his penchant for putting at least one scene of stomach-churning nastiness into each book. Worrying about what horrors may lie in wait on the next page can make it hard for sensitive souls like me to enjoy reading him. Be reassured that in this one the scene in question comes only a few pages from the end, is very short, and is done with such a light touch that it almost fails to offend.

Even reading the reviews makes me nostalgic for this book (5/6 people found this helpful)

There was something very special about Look to Windward. It had a majestic pace and considered tone that somehow sets it apart from the other Culture novels. Suffice to say, I loved it - but I would recommend reading it last as it does rely on knowlege of the earlier installments to allow the full implications of the plot to hit home. This book spoke to me and I listened.

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