Matter

... But not one to start the Culture series with.
I found Banks is one you have to ease yourself into, his sardonic take on societies takes a while to get in to. Once you are there though, excellent: Rich, polished caracters and worlds. Very good fun to read.

Commercially successfull, but... (0/1 people found this helpful)

Matter tells the story of three siblings of a king, taking different paths of dedication within their post-medieval world or beyond in the impressive shellworld and outer space. The book brings new and interesting elements concerning the Culture, and introduces the Morthanveld, a galactic-spanning civilization of similar evolutionary level of peace and interference, although having a money system (and an adapted gentle comparative/rank thinking).

Iain (M) Banks became really famous because of his genius, but also because of well-meaning publicity (propaganda?) in the context of publishing industry. Without reminding here that Orbit Books belongs to Hachette media group, that belongs to the Lagardère group, that produces weapons (and supports wars?) through EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company: but who of us does not contribute through taxes to "defence"?. As most everyone, the writer is in the material Big Loop, that somewhere, at some point, produces war. This aspect may be treated deeply in the book and one of the reasons for its title.

Society and politics are other aspects developed, bringing to a rather coherent ending of the story. In fact, Matter is one of the most coherent book I read from IMB, resulting from his skillfulness and the tremendous marathon writing performed here. Even, it is often barely enjoyable, for being too boring magazine reading! Life and landscape seem equally (ir)relevant, both just forms of matter. Maybe the whole book is a joke or a dadaistic experiment.

Very good, if a bit long (1/1 people found this helpful)

After finishing Consider Phlebas a few weeks ago, I absolutely had to read another Culture novel... I don't take half measures on this blog (!), so I skipped straight to the front of the series with the recently released Matter, which, at 593 pages, kept me busy for a few days...

It's fortunate then that, although there is an overarching storyline between all the Culture novels, you don't have to have read all of the ones in between -- it's just recommended! Despite that, there are various allusions to the story in Consider Phlebas (which happened hundreds of years ago) and more than a few mentions of how pointless the Idirans stance against the Culture was.

Witnessing the murder of the king at the hand of one of his closest advisers, tyl Loesp, Ferbin is a wanted man. He must flee before tyl Loesp manages to remove all trace of his treachery. The only problem is where to? Ferbin's people are not technologically advanced and his world, Sursamen, is care-takered by alien species far above them ... who do not always have the best cause at heart. Ferbin's only hope [sorry, couldn't resist] lies with Djan, his sister, now an agent with the Culture...

The ruminations on politics and suchlike occasionally went on a bit long, particularly with tyl Loesp, and more than once I skipped portions of his speeches. Generally, though, and from my only other Culture experience -- Consider Phlebas -- Matter was well written, and distinctly funnier -- Oramen, Ferbin's brother was great fun, if a little naive at times, and the dialogue overall was sharper. There was even, to my Mind, something of a Jeeves and Wooster relationship between Ferbin and his (vastly more intelligent) servant, Holse.

While Matter is typically inventive and jam-packed with as many different ideas as any Culture novel, a good portion of the novel takes place upon a world with very limited technology -- think muskets -- and bits of it, with the court intrigue, etc, felt more like fantasy than science-fiction -- even with Sursamen being controlled by highly technologically advanced alien species, they were so far above Ferbin's people, the Sarl, that they might as well have been gods. That wasn't necessarily a criticism, it was just an unusual approach that, for the most part, worked.

After Ferbin and Holse left Sursamen though, in the search of Ferbin's sister, Djan (now a Culture Special Circumstances operative), the pace of the story really picked up, and we begin to see more of the universe -- in which Culture is no longer dominant: there are many more Optimae species, many of which now regard the Culture as interfering.

Someone once said that it's ironic that while science-fiction often takes place many hundreds of years from now, it is always relevant to the time it is written -- Matter is no different. It's mentioned quite often that the Optimae are always spying upon the lesser species -- for their own good, of course -- and the spying, surveillance, always being watched feeling, some would say, is very relevant to today. Banks doesn't hit us over the head with the fact, however, and more often than not it's actually quite funny -- a knife missile disguised a sex toy, for example...

It's a nicely designed book, with cool cover art, but I did find the fact that the appendix was put before the epilogue a little strange! In fact, I completely missed the epilogue until I started writing this review -- but a very good epilogue it is ;) 8.5/10.

A worrying trend (0/2 people found this helpful)

Matter is an unnerving continuation of a trend, which has run, for me, probably since Dead Air or Look to Windward as appropriate, of what seems like Iain Banks (with M and without) either sitting on his laurels or running out of ideas. If it was written by someone else and you happened to pick it up, you'd be reasonably happy with your purchase - it is by no means a bad book although it feels oddly paced for the story. I found the huge index pretty pointless too; all it does is add weight to the book. I don't have the greatest memory in the world and I didn't need to refer to it once.

What made it disappointing, like the Algebraist and Garbadale, is the lack of a new direction, spark, idea, approach or gear that Banks has brought in with new books previously. Getting hold of the new Iain Banks has been enjoyable in its anticipation for me for years - there have been lesser books before but three successive (and regressive) disappointments is a new experience. I don't know if you can call someone derivative when what they are derivative of is their own work, but that is how this feels. Banks becoming a run of the mill author cannot be a good thing.

I'm undecided as to whether the book is too long or too short. The ending seems rushed and incomplete, which would argue for more length, but there is a lot of totally irrelevant stuff going on and characters and civilisations which add nothing to the story. Whichever, it isn't right, and there are some lengthy sections where I got the child-like urge to skip on a few pages to see if something was happening.

So, if you manage your expectations carefully you may well still enjoy this book. If you've read the rest of the M books you probably won't find anything new in here. It takes up a lot of space on your shelf too and weighs just under a ton in hardback. If this is the only Iain M Banks you've read, don't worry, the rest are better. I just hope the next one is too.

Anti Climax (0/1 people found this helpful)

I can keep this review fairly short. Matter is 450-ish pages of very good story telling in Bank's magnificent Culture universe let down by a 50 page rushed, anti climactic and sometimes downright bad conclusion. If you're interested in the Culture books, try one of the earlier ones.

Iain M. Banks

Reader Reviews:

A great book.... (0/0 people found this helpful)

Commercially successfull, but... (0/1 people found this helpful)

Very good, if a bit long (1/1 people found this helpful)

A worrying trend (0/2 people found this helpful)

Anti Climax (0/1 people found this helpful)

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