I absolutely loved this book, but that is not surprising, because Banks as an author is simply a master. The cadences of his sentence structure are so finely generated that they perfectly get the meaning across, and also work absolutely for any master storyteller for reading out load. As an example, take the first page of Consider Phlebas. Any storyteller worth their salt could read that page and easily know where to add pauses and inflection, slowing and lowering of voice to make those words come alive. I can hear them come alive in my head just that way. This book is a mind feast. Along with Use of Weapons and Player of Games this has gone on my short list of favorite Banks books.
The plot of the book has been gone done at least 136 times before by the people who have reviewed the book ahead of me. The real reason behind the book was to examine the rationale of country's that go to war and what it does to the people directly fighting in them. From that standpoint it succeeded. Neither the Culture nor the Idrians expected a full scale war, or one that lasted as long, or had so many casualties. There any number of twists and turns in the plot, and many times when you are on the edge of your seat, drawn into the action; literally flying through the pages dying to know what will happen to Bora Horza and his shipmates.
The characterization in this novel is so stellar that few could do it better. While we're not talking a cast of thousands, we are talking about creating many different off-world people,each with their own physical and mental characteristics. That is a tall order, and yet Banks makes it seem simple. The other thing he makes seem simple is worldbuilding. What a job that is - and yet what a stellar job he does. Whether it is the three legged, religious, insectoid Idrians and their Battlecruisers , the Culture and their Orbitals, or Shar's World, a planet of the Dead. Even the forest of Black Holes is so amazingly written. You can see all of it in detail in your minds eye because his prose is so masterfully constructed, so wordsmithed that you can't help yourself.
The pacing in the book was not swift all the way through. It had slower bits where you were learning with the characters, or the characters were resting or traveling. Then there bits of great excitement or terror, or a build up to even greater terror and then back to the slower bits. I figure this pace is more like real life and less like life for the attention deficit generation who need Dan Brown type of stimulation of "always on" to be entertained.
While the ending was sad, even in the appendices, Banks did stop and make you think about the motives of governments in everything that they do. Especially the price they pay for the decisions they make - when those decisions cost Billions of human lives. Because of this book, I'm still thinking about that question, and probably will be for a long time yet.
I would whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi, or just a thumping good read. It is so absolutely, positively one of the most wonderfully written books ever! I can't help myself from gushing about it. Have yourself a mind feast today. Go ahead - just buy it!
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Us with our busy, busy little lives, finding no better way to pass our years than in competitive disdain.Highlighted by 693 Kindle readers- “Empathize with stupidity and you’re halfway to thinking like an idiot,”Highlighted by 647 Kindle readers
- A Changer was a threat to anybody who ruled by force, either of will or of arms.Highlighted by 374 Kindle readers
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jacket summary
from the back cover of the October 1991 Bantam paperback editionBora Horza Gobuchul is a Changer, one of a near-extinct race who alters cell structure to become anyone they want - the most feared and sought-after spies in the universe. Horza fights on the side of the Idirans in a religious crusade against the smug, sterile machine worshippers of the Culture. Now he wants his freedom.But first he must hazard one final mission. He'll engage in a shoot-out in a giant crystal temple. Encounter a grossly obese cannibal determined to eat him alive. And witness a deadly game of Damage on a vast space habitat about to be blown to bits...
