Surface Detail / Iain M. Banks

Surface Detail

category: science fiction / fantasy, author:

Iain M. Banks

book 12(?) of Culture
original copyright 2010,
read in Aug 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 5 out of 10

If I wanted to pick just one word to summarise Surface Detail, it would be "tedious". The author seems to have forgotten to add "action" to his check-list. For the first 400 or so pages... nothing much happens.

Rather, things are happening -- but those happenings are swamped by... well... the surface detail of descriptions of the Culture. Oh, look! here's something wonderful! How does it advance the story? Not at all... But look, it's wonderful!

Go back and watch the very first Star Wars movie. The first one that was made, I mean. Look at the background, the detail, the little robots running round polishing and cleaning. Does anyone say, Look at that little robot! Isn't it wonderful!

No... The wonders of the Star Wars universe are everywhere. If they were not there, the movie would look a lot like a Western. (Okay, a lot more like a Western.) But the technological marvels are either an essential part of the plot -- or just there. Uncommented.

Banks, on the other hand, spends many pages describing the wonders of his Culture universe. Sure, it's wonderful. But so what? What does it do for the story? Nothing much.

Clarke's Third Law states, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That's why I have placed this book in both science fiction and fantasy categories.

Why not?!

The Culture universe is based on advanced science. Science so advanced that -- for the present-day reader -- it may as well be magic. Oh dear, he's dead! No he's not, he was carrying a Soul Stone...

Chapter 1 of Surface Detail introduces a character who is dead by the end of the chapter. Except she is not really dead. At least, the body is dead... and the mind is dead... but there's a copy. So the copy can be put back into a vat-grown body and the character is alive again. Or, a copy is alive...

Chapter 2 introduces another character... who promptly gets killed. But not really.

Does anyone really die? Is this form of reincarnation real, or is the death real and the new person really a new person... with old memories?! What is "Real" and what is virtual?

One character -- if you can survive 500 pages of this tedious novel -- has a near-death experience. She drinks some water and enjoys it so much that she thinks, Yes, this is Real. Silly woman... Her thoughts have probably been programmed to enjoy water and to believe that nice tasting water is a sign of Real... Similar thought changes have been done to other characters, why not to this woman?!

This is a fairy tale based on an enormous imagination. With some dubious continuity and inconsistent logic.

If you can survive more than 600 pages of the marvelously tedious Culture -- with not much happening -- but with regular rants about the stupid things that are done... in our world, today -- the ending is quite exciting and satisfying. The last 50 or so pages, that is.

There is even a final chapter of, this is what happened to some of the characters, sometime after the events of this novel. I like that, to know that life did go on... Except...

There were so many characters that I really had to scratch my head to work out who had then done what...

With a final sentence of the entire book, "Your table is ready, Mr X."

Look, I've typed "Mr. X." So as not to spoil the surprise for the keen reader. (You must exist. Somewhere.) But who is this Mr X?

I scratched my head. Stirred my memory. Finally... went to Wikipedia... and found...

Mr X is a character from earlier Culture novels.

I hope that that is not too much of a spoiler for the Culture fan. (Sorry!) But good grief! Why?!

I enjoy stories with continuing characters, in a standardised universe. But each novel should also stand alone.

Is this Mr X an in-joke for the Culture fan?

It's clearly intended to be significant... but to me, as a reader of only three or four Culture novels, it is meaningless.

Read the fairy-tale. Watch the various characters wave their magic wands and chant their mystic incantations. It'll pass a few hours. Or, at least, it will put you to sleep.

..o0o..

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