Surface Detail (Culture series)

A new wave of (mostly British) authors are creating entire universes all their own, and Banks is the latest entry. Although I found his universe of interest and worth exploring, the book left me cold in a number of ways. The story alternated between the young female star (Lededje), and a number of AI personalities that were trapped in their own private hells. Apparently a number of cultures in this galaxy punish the dead by copying their memories and 'torturing' the memories in computerized hells.

There are way too many sequences of women being tortured/snuffed, I felt like it was cheap manipulation by the author to get a reaction out of the reader. If that worked as a literary device, Vader would have run Princess Leia through a wood chipper in Star Wars. Sorry, this sort of stuff leaves me cold. I failed to see how imprinting a rich family's name on a person (even into their bone marrow) would reflect well on said rich family. I guess PR works differently in the future. Why would people think well of Veppers beforehand?

As for the 'private Hells', it seems like a waste of computer resources, as one character noted. I doubt a computer program could be tortured or made to feel pain in a digital environment. Maybe if they were forced to run under a slow copy of Windows Vista?

I also did not buy the whole sequence of Lededje's resurrection and newly-created body. What obligation did that starship 3,000 light years across the galaxy have in "activating" a personality file transmitted anonymously? None whatsoever. Why did the starship need to create a separate robot minder ("Slap Drone" as was humorously termed)? It created every single molecule of the woman's new body, and couldn't have monitored things from something inside her? Most unbelievably, Lededje took no time to adjust from being a computer simulation to existing in a corporeal body. I expected her to take some time just figuring out how to WALK again, not on figuring out who to have anonymous sex with minutes after taking her first breath.

The side stories of the war drone/machine personality, and the hell angel personality (both previously living people) were interesting on their own merits. I feel they could have been done better as separate stories. Lededje's story could have been better if she was not defined solely by her tormenter, the hyper-wealthy Veppers. Speaking of whom, why spend so many chapters following his sadistic adventures? That was an easy hundred pages that could have been trimmed right there. The book was too long, and it did not come together as the author intended.

Banks closes by telling us that a hagiography of the villainous Veppers by a "right-wing revisionist" flops. Maybe the Veppers clan should have considered a left-wing biographer like Ted Kennedy's. He sent his secretary/mistress screaming to a watery grave, yet he is considered the most humane progressive who ever lived. Money can't buy that sort of positive PR. Or maybe it can. I get the stereotypical point of the novel, that Veppers was rich and therefore evil in every way. Let us hope that this presumption does not apply to all rich people, as that category now includes the author himself.

I read this in one sitting, much to the annoyance of my family. A richly detailed tale with intertwined character plot lines. This is a fairly long book and did drag in a few places. Around chapter eighteen, I was hoping for the plot lines to come together more rapidly. All in all, the best science fiction book that I've read in the last twelve months.

I love the texture and atmosphere of the world. The names of everything and everyone are fantastic. The settings are fascinating, varied and really well wrought. Many of the characters are bland and interchangeable but there are some really fun and memorable ones mixed in. Really good worldbuilding. Worth a read just for that.

The plot itself was the big disappointment. The stakes couldn't be higher, but none of the characters' actions seem to make a difference in the scheme of things. It feels more like observing a gradual change in social norms than reading a story. The plot twists felt forced, and many of the plotlines didn't seem to go anywhere.

I'd read it, but I think you have to enjoy each chapter for what it is, and for the ideas that it contains, rather than expecting it to build up to something greater.

I thougth it was exellent to capture good and evil throughout. It had absurdity and notion of percetable wit,humor and laugh which could get very exiting even in akward moments. Hillarious,Killer read..

Superb Culture novel. Complex plot, funny and witty Artificial minds, mind blowing worlds/habitats/ships, we have it all in this brilliant book. Makes us regret all the more Banks death. I hope he is now having fun in his own virtual reality.

Very creative addition to the excellent Culture series. As perfectly well-written as all of Banks' books. His prose is so good the sentences are a pleasure to read for their content, structure and imagery.

Great heroine and villain. Clever positioning of the story on one of the mid-scale developed worlds.

Welcome return to earlier works like CONSIDER PHEBLAS, LOOK TO WINDWARD AND EXCESSION. When banks does hard SF he has few equals.

Other reviews have mentioned the particulars I just wanted to add the Kindle version is perfect without any of the formatting problems that the UK version initally displayed.

Everything an astute reader has come to expect of Iain M. Banks over the last two-odd decades of Culture novels.

I found _Surface Detail_ more satisfying than _Matter_ or _Look to Windward_. The main protagonist -- as with _Matter_, a pan-human not originally from the Culture -- shows considerable character growth. And there is a great tie-in to the early Culture novels.

I thought a lot about this one. The main question is: does Banks realize how much of a dystopia "The Culture" is? He makes the capitalistic antagonist just as purely evil as possibly can--the man maintains hells in which virtual spirits are tortured forever, for God's sake--and yet Banks cannot escape the Milton problem--his antagonist has more life, more fire, more interest than the putative heroes. The Culture is inherently elitist, humans are basically welfare recipients living in the shadow of their AI betters. The novel is very inventive, though sometimes the action and invention seem meaningless, because no one you care about is being affected by it.

Disappointing. Banks is one of my all-time favourites, but I found this boring and a very frustrating read. I am all for outlandish settings and strange plots, but I could not work up an interest. Re-read some of the classic culture novels or Against a dark background instead.

The title is somewhat of a misnomer. The plot has deep detail and if you love science fiction you will love this novel. I did not read any of the culture novels when I started this and it did not matter --I still enjoyed Surface Detail. I like the way the story leverages both virtual reality and space opera.

This book was considerably longer than it needed to be, including some absolutely interminable sequences where Lededje and the ship avatar Demeisen fight huge numbers of vessels. I skipped whole pages of that. Confusingly plotted, not particularly satisfying at the end. The reason I got it was because of the virtual-hell idea--I grant that's rather original. I was disappointed that Veppers didn't end up in one. He was, alas, a stereotypical one-percenter, a filthy rich (to put it mildly) sadist whose money and power shelter him from the consequences of all his actions, the sort of person who'd literally kill someone (slowly) for even looking cross-eyed at him. Loathsome and not very original.

Demeisen, the mechanical intelligence of the ship, was an original character, of the kind I never want to encounter again. I'm not a blushing flower, but the relentless, gratuitous, gleeful profanity of most characters and Demeisen especially grated on me so much that I could hardly finish the book. His every other word was f___, and I could just imagine the author tittering at his own universe-filling cleverness as he wrote. I'm glad I only paid $2 for this epic and will read no other books by this author.

It is perhaps appropriate for a book that centres around the battle for the afterlife to begin this review with a confession: this was my first encounter with Iain M Banks' Culture series of science fiction novels. At first, I worried that this put me at a significant disadvantage as for the first 100 or so pages, I spend most of the time being completely confused about what was going on. However, as the strands started to come together, it became apparent that this is partly Banks' style and indeed it's one he uses in his non-science fiction books too. Keep going, it does come together.

As in his non-sci fi works, Banks juggles stories and characters with dazzling effect. He takes a number of characters whose stories may or may not ultimately come together and switches between their stories. And just when you think one line of story is not going anywhere in particular, he twists it round and it all makes perfect sense. The confusion is compounded by the fact that he is covering both the `Real' and `virtual' worlds, and particularly in the virtual worlds, characters may take on different roles and identities. Sound confusing? Well, it is at first but it's also highly entertaining, not to mention clever.

To the uninitiated, the Culture is a fictional interstellar enlightened, socialist, and utopian society operating amongst other, less benevolent and lesser civilized civilizations. This is at least the eighth book to feature the Culture, which first started with Consider Phlebas featuring the Culture's religious war against the Idiran Empire. We are told that the events of Surface Detail occur a millennium and a half after this war.

Surface Detail begins when Lededje Y'breq, a tattooed slave (surface detail, you see?) is attempting to escape from her evil owner, the rich and powerful Veppers who has made his family fortune in virtual war games. He's like an evil cross between Bill Gates and Hugh Heffner.

Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy, a war rages over the right for Hell to exist. At first the Culture is not directly involved in this war being fought out in a virtual environment with the antagonists agreeing to abide by the outcome in the Real, which strikes me as a very good way of settling disputes. But that will change as the virtual war spills over into the Real.

This is terrifically bad news for the galaxy, but great news for the reader as it brings into play the Culture war ship `'Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints'` and it's avatar Demeisen introducing that classic sci fi fall back of entertaining computers communicating with humans. It maybe a well-used trick, but it affords great opportunity for humour. And if you think that ship's title is good, how about the `'Sense Amidst Madness, Wit Amidst Folly'`. I know that in the current economic climate cuts are likely in Defence spending here on Earth, but surely we can put something aside to re-name some of our Navy with these names!

There's double-crossing aplenty, action, revenge, love stories, virtual and real action, tech and humour and some terrific characters. But what sets this book apart is the quality of the writing and the depth of the author's imagination. Amongst all the mayhem, Banks raises some interesting questions about identity, death and the whole point of Hell.

Fans of the Culture series will need no encouragement to grab this latest installment. Sure, it can be confusing at times and Banks does rather leave some stories hanging (although he presents a little potted outcome of the characters at the end) but it's a wonderful trip and I for one will be eagerly diving into the earlier books.

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Iain M Banks crafts fantastic worlds where he doesn't simply look to the future but takes possibilities to their most grand, if not a times most extreme. In this book the main protagonist is Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body an illustration of her family’s shame. For her life belongs to a man whose hankering for power is without end. She will do anything for her liberty, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture; an anarchist utopian society that transverses space on planets, huge space orbitals and various space faring vessels. They can be considered munificent, progressive and almost infinitely ingenious though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any single person. With the backing of one of its most potent AI minds - and arguably unbalanced - warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a war zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war - brutal, far-reaching - which is already raging within the digital realms such as virtual heavens and hells that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality. For physical death doesn't have to be fatal. It's a simple matter to upload your mind regularly and if your physical body suffers an accident, then a new one can be cloned and your mind popped back into it.

When you read Iain M Banks Culture novels you will realise that space opera can be so, so much more, and it's all done with a razor-sharp black humour – but always with such intelligent style.
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Banks's technical writing skills cannot be denied. He's great at what he does.

This story is an awkward one to read. It's got a lot of rape in it. And torture. Most of that has to do with a literal hell dimension. However, some of it is superfluous, and it detracts.

The standard problem with Banks's culture novels applies here: there are plenty of superintelligent beings around who could do all the work, but instead mere humans do.

Those are the two flies in the ointment, and the rest is a relatively gripping story with high stakes and plentiful hardships.

If you can create an immersive virtual reality indistinguishable from the Real then you can build Heaven ... or Hell. Inevitably some civilizations will build their own Hells, to punish sinners and encourage the virtuous. Equally inevitably, other civilizations will want to abolish these virtual arenas of unending torment.

In "Surface Detail", Iain M. Banks' new Culture novel, there is a war in progress on this very issue. Waged for decades in virtuality, the losing side is preparing to cheat and move the war into the Real. Suddenly this issue could drag everybody in.

This novel of 627 pages provides plenty of space for a multitude of story lines to develop and coalesce as the big picture comes slowly into focus. We start, in medias res, with the tattooed girl Lededje fleeing her overbearing boss. We cut to the conscript Vatueil, part of a mediaeval army besieging a castle in an opaque war. We cut to an overwhelming `equivalent tech' assault upon a Culture Orbital and meet Yime Nsokyi fighting in the last ditch. Not all of these events are happening in the Real.

It's a challenge to write compelling descriptions of Hell: how many words for torment are there in the language? How many gruesome tortures do you need to describe? How can you get the reader to empathise with suffering? Banks' solution is to apply a paced plot-driven structure to excursions into the netherworld: we encounter agonies from repeatedly unexpected directions.

Towards the end, as battle fleets assemble, the novel picks up pace and Banks has a lot of fun with the Abominator Class General Offensive Unit "Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints". This is a ship which could probably destroy a whole galactic spiral arm without really trying and boy, does it waste the bad guys!

So: exuberant, satisfyingly complex, interesting characters, quite a few surprises and a weird echo of "Use of Weapons" on the final page. What's not to like?

If all SF is really reflection on the here-and-now, what's the issue being explored here? No-one is going to feel too surprised that Iain Banks feels that torture is wrong, that virtual reality Hells are a poor idea, that sociopathic plutocrats ought to get their just desserts. So where is the subversive take on received bien-pensant opinion? The nearest I could find is that sometimes being talented, high-ranking and self-important doesn't make you the automatic centre of attention - a somewhat underwhelming truth.

So read it as intelligent, sophisticated entertainment: it's worth the money.

As an enthusiastic follower of modern British sci-fi, I've been reading Iain Bank's Culture novels since the first publication of `Consider Pleabas'. Apart from the somewhat incomprehensible `Excession' (all that Mind chatter made for a hard read) I've greatly enjoyed all of them and was eagerly awaiting the long delayed paperback publication of this novel (thanks Orbit!).

Perhaps it is because I've discovered Alastair Reynolds in the extended interregnum between `Matter' and this novel, I really struggled to get into this book. Instead of Bank's usually slick, multithreaded narrative it felt contrived and disjointed; even when the threads began to come together it still lacked pace and cohesion. There were thankfully still flashes of the old Bank genius but these moments of wit and style seemed reserved for the ship Minds rather than the seemingly secondary biological characters.

I would like to have enjoyed this book more, having waited for it for so long, but unfortunately I was disappointed. It was hard going and is definitely the weakest of the Culture novels; still an OK read but no un-putdownable page turner.

Iain Banks returns to The Culture, his massive, hugely advanced, galactic civilization, in "Surface Detail" (Orbit, $25.99, 627 pages) - which is good news for fans, who had to undergo an eight-year hiatus in the now eight-book series from 2000 to 2008.

The Culture is a liberal's dream: Advances in technology and language have created a society in which everyone is healthy, there's plenty of everything, and powerful artificial intelligences are just one of many species that live and trade together in almost perfect harmony.

But even The Culture has its dark alleys, and "Surface Detail" is concerned with its darkest: The creation of literal hells for religious and behavioral reasons. Banks, though, gets to his topic in a roundabout way, beginning with the story of a young woman who is essentially a debt-slave to the villain of the piece, the very much stock bad guy Joilers Veppers. (One of the biggest weaknesses of "Surface Detail" is the characterization of Veppers, whose simplistic evil is basically a caricature.)

Once rolling, though, Banks' mastery of the space opera form, his page-turning skills and his complex plot rooted in the grand vision of The Culture makes for a fun read. Sometimes it does get confusing trying to keep track of the various factions, and the twist at the very end of the book is meaningful only to those who have read previous volumes, but even so, "Surface Detail" is a nice introduction to The Culture. And if you like it, there are seven more to read.

A few plots run concurrently through this novel. First we have the murdered slavegirl, brought back to life in a new body and out for revenge. Then we have the soldier experiencing one life after another in a Virtual war. There are also a pair of lovers, one trapped in a virtual Hell and the other escaped and trying to change his society. And also the business man who has made his fortune hosting virtual Hells for the civilisations of the galaxy to punish their wrong-doers and who is now considering a way to make even more money. These plots exist within the universe of the Culture. The Culture is a mixed human and AI civilisation that usually sticks its nose into everyone else's business in the name of idealism. Luckily for us readers, some of the AI's who run the Culture ships are eccentric lunatics with serious weaponry. And that is what this novel brings us - idealistic super-intelligent battleships interfering in the aforementioned plots.

To be honest, the earlier parts of this book simply did not grab my interest. Then, suddenly about a fifth of the way in, I was hooked and consumed the novel with a passion.

The book itself is obviously professionally edited, well structured and has good dialogue.

Banks is a clever and witty author who explores the darker side of the human soul with both a realistic fatality and insightful humour.

A definite must for any of Bank's fans and I strongly recommend it for most science fiction readers.

Banks combines his skills at horror stories (when writing as Iain Banks) and his incredible science fiction imagination (writing as Iain M. Banks) together in this novel. Converging plot lines of a former sex slave's attempt at revenge against her tormentor and a virtual war to determine the fate of virtual Hells make a gripping, horrifying story. Among the plot lines:

- Lededje Y'breq, a sex slave, was murdered by her ultra-rich, ultra-powerful master, Veppers, as nasty a piece of work as you'll meet in a Banks' novel. Earlier, she'd granted a mysterious visitor a favor. The visitor wanted to pay her. She told the visitor to "surprise her." He did. Lededje Y'breq finds herself unexpectedly reincarnated - "revented" - aboard a Culture ship, thousands of light years away. She's looking for revenge.

- Veppers is an amoral, utterly unscrupulous businessman. He and his family made their vast fortune in virtual gaming. He made himself still richer by branching out into more unsavory activities. There is nothing he won't do, nothing he won't betray, to make himself richer still. Including selling himself to both sides in a fight.

- Abominator Class General Offensive Unit "Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints" is an AI, one of the Culture Artificial Intelligences, and a vulgar, chaotic and incredibly devious one, at that. It's not above arranging events so that it can annihilate the opposition. It may or may not be Lededje Y'breq's ally. His avatar, the apparent person created to interact with humans, is Demeisen. And Demeisen has to rank as one of Banks' most successful characters.

- A sufficiently advanced virtual reality is indistinguishable from the Real. Some species have created virtual Heavens and Hells. A person's consciousness can be sent to such a virtual Heaven or Hell. Prin and Chay voluntarily went to such a Hell to find out the truth. Only Prin was able to escape. We follow Prin as his story is made public and in his agony at leaving Chay behind; we follow Chay as she endures endless torments in a virtual Hell. Dante's Inferno is a walk in the park in comparison.

- Many societies are repulsed by the idea of virtual Hells and want them shut down. Others regard them as a moral necessity. To resolve the dispute, a virtual war has been arranged. But the anti-Hell side is losing, and the strangely familiar Space Marshall Vateuil is ready to break all the rules and take the virtual war into the Real.

Banks' incredible imagination is in full play as he weaves these plot lines together through betrayals, reveals, double-crosses and plot twists that are simply wonderful. If Demeisen steals the second half of the book - and he/it does - then it is because the plot requires it. As we have come to expect in a Banks' novel, the last 100 pages will absolutely grip you.

And while this is a science fiction novel, it also raises timeless questions of morality, religiosity and honor. Demeisen may deny having a conscience, but Banks certainly has one and he is willing to ask the hard questions. A terrific read, it will entertain you, horrify you and leave you thinking. This is about as good as space opera gets.

Highly recommended.

Iain Banks, phenomenon that he is, writes the most advance science fiction available today. He writes like a cross between William Gibson (the nuances of language, the psychological subtlety, the exotica) and Peter F. Hamilton (vast scope, and the excitement of his story).

Enthusiasts will debate how good Surface Detail is compared to previous Banks novels -my favorites are Feersum Enjin and Consider Phlebas--but the truth is almost all of Banks's novels are quite good, and definitely far above the curve for novels of the distant future. Banks is one of a handful of authors who have reconfigured the world of science fiction -add Gibson (who is phenomenal), China Mieville, Haruki Murakami, and maybe one or two others and the list is complete.

Banks's Culture novels deserve special praise. He depicts a complex universe in which countless cultures have risen. They are at vastly different levels. Some are barely space worthy, and they lie in semi-quarantine until they become civilized. At the other end lie whole peoples and artificial intelligences which are about to move, or already have moved, to Sublimation --out of their bodily selves and gland and emotion-driven bodies into a state of pure, abstracted, uninvolved Intelligence. What a universe it is!

In this universe, peoples still fight battles, although the Culture, an amalgam of post-war, post-fighting societies, imposes limits on what the more primitive peoples can do. There is still politicking. There are still bad guys and good guys and unresolved conflicts, and that's what the Culture novels are about. Banks's perspective on all this is refreshingly positive -the books are about peoples working out their own solutions to worldwide problems without to the heavy hand of some omnipresent and omnipotent intergalactic government. Banks depicts a messy universe of many very different peoples that nonetheless polices and prunes itself of the most dangerous excrescences. One of the pleasures of reading a novel by Banks is to see the various ways people address common problems. It's a wide, wild world.

Surface Detail is about a war to destroy Hell. In the absence of a real immortality, different races have invented virtual Hells, which are stored digitally -somewhere, who knows where-- and in which real individuals are deposited after death to suffer for eternity. Given that one's `soul' can be stored digitally and restored, either in a virtual world or revented in a cloned new body, the question becomes whether it is ethical to condemn the dead to a particularly degrading and painful afterlife. Some of the best scenes in this book depict life in Hell. It's not a pretty picture.

Banks novels typically run several plot lines at once and this book is no exception. Lededje Y'breq is Intagliated. She has been sold into slavery to pay off her family's debt. She has been whored to a monster of self-interest, who has surfed on the waves of other people's self-0interst and thus need for his services. He kills her after raping her (not for the first -no, not for the thousandth time) but unbeknownst to her, her psyche has been backed up off planet. Revived and `revented' in a new body, her goal in life is to kill the monster who owned her. From that point on, things get tangled. The characters multiply and the plot complicates. It's all resolved in the end.

Is this book uniformly brilliant? No. There are slow passages. There are other passages that read like the normally expected technobabble in a contemporary sci fi novel. But these are quibbles. What a refreshing perspective this truly inventive novel offers on the multifarious potential of living creatures, including us humans.

I love Banks' Culture books, describing events in the more interesting segments of a (future) nearly omnipotent, utopian society. Among other things, these books show that even in a nearly perfect society (by our standards) interesting and deadly things can still happen, even if only at the fringes. Bear in mind that the fringe of a civilization of trillions is quite a large thing.

Pro:
+ As ever, strong writing and some exciting episodes throughout this hard sci-fi book.
+ Exposes new facets of the Culture, and examines new moral ground, some quite weighty
+ We get to see the Culture's martial prowess in more detail than ever before. Drones the size of footballs can devastate entire countries, now we see what a kilometer long warship can *really* do! Worth the read just for this!
+ Interesting characters and threads in the story. I was engaged for the whole thing
+ A very satisfying conclusion (IMO), and appendices which give us a glimpse of character futures, easing the touchdown after the story's climax. I really appreciated this new addition, especially since I felt Matter which I just finished ended too abruptly.

Con:
- More than the usual number of characters, often with complex races and names. I sometimes got confused.
- The start - though exciting - was a little slow and confusing for me. I found myself saying "wait a second - I thought this was a Culture book!"

I don't want to reveal much about the plot, because I feel like that spoils the joy of reading. I don't even read the dust jacket, usually! But, let's just say that, among other things, you get to see the normal exciting encounters and mortal danger, the heady power of the Culture, the philosphical underpinnings of (from a non-religeous perspective) heaven and hell, and what sorts of things we mortals would imagine as hell, the weariness of a life where - if you choose - the sum of your experiences (though not your soul) cannot die. We're treated to a much deeper view of Ship minds and their motivations, as well.

Is this the best Culture book? No, for me that's like asking whether this is in the top five science fiction books of all time. However, it's a GOOD Culture book, and well worth a read.

I truly enjoyed this book. If you like science fiction and/or you like Banks, you should absolutely read this.

The book is typical Banks; thrilling, action-packed, well-written, thought-stimulating and provoking, epic - yet it is, unusually for him, it is also amusing. As always, it is full of fascinating characters - a tattooed slave, a virtual warrior, the most reprehensible capitalist you'd ever want to meet, though it's the ships ("Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints" and its avatar Demeison, the Hooligan-class LOU "Me, I'm Counting", and the awfully staid "Sense Amidst Madness, Wit Amongst Folly") that really steal the part; mischievous, anarchic disruptors or upholders of authority, occasionally slightly paranoid, always full of confidence, representatives of a mighty power. When I come back in another life I want to come back as one of Bank's ships!
The book starts off as a series of, apparently unrelated, short stories (the pursuit and brutal murder of a slave-girl, the misadventures of a sapper in some mediaeval siege, a couple being tormented in Hell, a "robot-warrior" fighting a rearguard action) that gradually merge together into this grand space opera which deals with noble aims, intrigue, power-politics and casual destruction. The story that pulls it together is that of two conflicting ideologies involved in a war aimed at deciding whose beliefs are going to define the future.
I loved it... I entered an alternative reality and lived a full life there.... What more could anyone ask for?

The Culture novels are unquestionably Iain M. Banks' greatest achievements in the science-fiction field, and are simply just some of the best SF out there. While it's been a case of diminishing returns as far as the non-Culture SF and non-"M" books go, in the Culture books Banks has continually extended his sci-fi concept of an utopian far-future space-faring society, giving it greater depth and meaning. Mixing traditional adventure, espionage and war, the Culture novels use their SF platform to explore relevant social, political, philosophical and humanitarian questions in a much more subtle way than the maladroit and heavy-handed "editorialising" that often marrs Banks' work elsewhere.

If it doesn't entirely break any new ground in the way that Excession did - and even Look To Windward and Matter to a lesser extent - with regard to the big questions of Life and Death and what lies beyond, Surface Detail is at least a thrilling summation of his explorations in this area, and, as such, it's a perfect introduction for anyone not familiar with the rich, wonderful, beautiful and cruel worlds that Banks has created in the Culture universe. It's the cruelty that takes centre stage in his latest book, the opening chapters in particular relating to several characters who suffer the most gruesome torture and death. That's nothing new with Banks, but he truly excels himself here with one of the most vivid, brutal and shocking visions of Hell this side of Dante. True death of course is rare in the Culture universe, and it's certainly not the end for these characters in Surface Detail, but rather the beginning of a look at what lies beyond death.

At the heart of the story is a simple revenge tale (can't go wrong there). Lededje Y'breq, having beeen brutally murdered while in servitude to Joiler Veppers, has unexpectedly been "reborn" on a Culture ship, and intends to do her former master serious harm in return. What complicates matters is that Veppers is a highly important individual, perhaps the most important person in the Sichultian Enablement, and any action against him would not only be contrary to the Culture's official position of non-intervention in foreign affairs, but in this case it could also have serious repercussions in the wider picture of... well, let's just say "After-life" interests.

A simple enough story on the surface, the detail however is in the richness of the world and the complex, fragile diplomatic relations that are maintained between the Culture and other civilisations. That brings in all the usual thrilling encounters with wonderfully named ship Minds, with their Avatars, with the covert operations of Special Circumstances and with several other arcane organisations within the Culture. What is marvellous about Banks work in the Culture, are the real-life questions regarding interventionism by a major "nation" with different ideals, beliefs and values, and whether their actions are for the "greater good". Surface Detail is particularly accessible in this regard, combining a thrilling science-fiction plot (although perhaps there are one or two threads that don't really keep up with the action) with fascinating ethical and metaphysical ponderings, and all the wit and intelligence that you would associate with the best Iain M. Banks work.

The devil is in the details. Well, several devils are in Surface Detail, which is fitting, because the book itself is obsessed with detail.

Here's a quick guide to the three questions every book-buyer wants to know:

What's it about?
Breezy dialogue (by either smart-arse AIs or idiots in over their heads), balls-out techno-blitzkrieg battles, and densely detailed, borderline obsessive-compulsive world-building. There's some stuff about virtual reality heavens and hells, a virtual war being fought to shut down the latter, and a reincarnated woman out for revenge on her murderer, but that's just to keep the cheap seats happy.

What's it like?
Spending 10 years in Banks's hyper-advanced Culture setting. Gives you an ever-escalating series of imaginative and outlandish settings, in a kind of literary tinnitus that fills each page with vision after stupendous vision. Catnip for the devotee, but bafflingly self-indulgent to everyone else.

Is it any good?
Mostly yes, but leavened with bouts of dullness, unless you like your SciFi chattier than Stephen Fry's twitter page.

After a couple of rather disappointing books, Iain M. Banks is back with something worth reading. Basically this is yet another "Culture" novel, which revolves around a mythical utopian culture where benevolent super-intelligent "minds" (AIs) run everything. A concise summary of the plot is that lots happens. It's big-picture space opera, with massive space battles, diverse aliens, societies that range from slightly more advanced than ours to near-godlike high tech, close-combat action, virtual realties, and, of course, class warfare (this IS an Iain M. Banks novel!). It's a good read, but not up to the standard of some of his other work. I usually like his use of multiple complex plot-threads, it gives me the chance to read it several times to figure out what I've missed, but in this one some of the threads are a lot more threadbare than others, and some get old. Also, as with Transitions, extensive descriptions of torture can really be a downer. Still, there is one scene where a just slightly psychopathic sentient Culture warship is looking forward to getting into a proper fight that is worth the price of the book by itself.

One comment though: my edition has a little official-looking seal saying "A Culture Novel". In my experience, this sort of thing is always a bad sign. What's next, "A Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints Adventure!"? Actually I might go for that one...

I think an Intagliate being is the neatest alien pan-human I've ever read about it. Every cell in her body tattooed? Wow.

However, despite the amazing plot intricacies of the 600+ page book, I was disappointed by the somewhat secondary roles of most of the female characters. They were mostly appealing, needing rescue, and not as tough as the males despite the Culture's ability to change anyone into anything. Apparently sexual transmutation does not mess with sexual stereotypes from primitive 20th century Earth.

The most amazing projections of what uses The Matrix' movie-type technology could be used for were explored by the author, and some were horrifying, mostly because I could see how such technology COULD be misused by religious societies exactly as projected in the novel.

This is truly a convoluted and twisting plot, with many threads. While I think it was very entertaining, smart and hellishly inventive, I don't think it was a light or fast read. It requires a commitment to read. But it is very fun.

I just finished reading Surface Detail and this might be my favorite Culture novel yet. I've been reading them in publication order. Previously, my favorite was either Excession or Look to Windward. This novel has everything that makes the Culture novels so great: computer Minds with real personalities, strong females, intricate (but not baroque) plotting, and exciting and imaginative set pieces.

It's interesting how sci-fi can't help drawing influence from contemporary technology. This one is clearly takes some inspiration from our pervasive Internet and online games, but that's not a bad thing.

This novel expands the Culture universe with new aliens and new Culture divisions without them seeming like retcons. It's well-paced and picks up right away. (I thought Matter took too long to get started.) It kept me turning pages and I read the whole book in a weekend, which is not something I usually do.

After a few lackluster books, the Banks of old shows a return to form with this novel. While it does not quite hit the heights of Excession and Use of Weapons, it is a page turner and consistently good throughout.

Banks' setting in the Culture allows him great leeway with characterization of the Ship Minds, and I think one thing that sets his work apart from other SF authors who may have similar devices at their disposal, is that he is able to formulate these beings which are essentially gods, into extreme yet completely and reasobably believable people (more than just characters). It's territory he does not always choose to explore, though he did so at length in Excession, and a few memorable characters come to light in this novel in this way.

I ate up this weighty volume with joy, and now that it's over, I'm quite sad. I was beginning to give up on Banks but I'm pleasantly surprised to find that he is back in form.

Yay! Another Culture novel, chock-full of super-pseudo-science, tremendous space battles, delightfully psycho AIs, and philosophical musings on the nature of personal identity.

So why only four stars?

There seem to be rules in the publishing industry that modern SF novels need to have at least 500 pages, and more POVs than are really necessary. Banks follows these rules in this book, and as a result the book is not as tight as earlier works were.

And the final plot twist will have no significance for those who haven't already read a certain other Culture novel. I further ruined it for myself by saying, "Man, how long is this book?" and flipping to the back to see what the final page number was (627). I let my eye fall to a critical word on the final page and thus ruined my surprise. Oh well...

Yet another big, thick, dense Culture novel.

But has the fire gone from Banks' belly?

I wonder because while the plot is as byzantine as usual, with lots of players and high-tech splashed around with no care or abandon, I'm not sure what Banks is really trying to say.

Now it's possible I missed the point. And let's be honest, that's likely because I found it hard to keep all the plot threads tightly wound in my imagination rather than Banks not having one. But part of that was because memories from his last big, thick sci-fi, "Matter" kept intruding. And the big, thick sci-fi before that, "The Algebraist", kept leaching in as well.

Despite "The Algebraist" being very much not a Culture novel, these books share enough family traits that I must to admit to a bit of "been there, done that" reaction to "Surface Detail".

So what we have is reader fatigue for a Culture fan, but if you're not familiar with the Culture you're likely to spend most of the novel wondering what's going on!

Which is a pity because Banks writes with care and attention and you get a lot of story for your money, it's just, for me at least, too familiar to really excite.

Surface Detail is the ninth book in Iain M. Banks's Culture series, and the third I've read. As soon as I read the summary, I couldn't wait to pick it up. Fortunately, the Culture books are generally standalone stories, so it was easy to skip ahead.

The book has a good half-dozen plot threads that run concurrently, all somehow touching on the effects of technologies that have made it possible to back up a person's "mind-state", essentially a digital recording of their soul. Once a mind-state is backed up, it can be "re-vented" into a new body, or consigned to a virtual afterlife, some of which are decidedly unpleasany. Naturally the disposition of digital souls has huge social, political, and religious implications. The issue of virtual hells is a controversial one, and a war has broken out in the galaxy between The Culture (among others) and societies who believe it is their right to send the digital dead to eternal damnation.

The main thread of the book focuses on Lededje Y'breq, a young woman who is an indentured servant of the most powerful man in her society, Joiler Veppers. She is more than just a slave, however; her society has a form of indenture that involves a full-body tattoo genetically etched onto every cell in her body. She is an "intagliate", and is marked with both an exotic beauty and an ever-present reminder of her status as chattel.

When Lededje tries to run away from Veppers, he hunts her down and stabs her to death in a sudden rage. However, what neither Lededje or Veppers realize is that The Culture has taken an interest in her plight. After she is murdered, she awakens on a Culture ship light-years away and discovers that all of her memories are intact, along with a pressing need for revenge. Events in the book are set into motion when she begins the journey back to her home world to exact that revenge.

Some of the story takes place in the real world, some in virtual worlds simulating an endless war, and some in the virtual hell run by an alien society. The story jumps wildly from place to place and character to character. We are introduced to so many fascinating people and exotic places over the course of the book, it is sometimes hard to keep track of everything as it flies by. The book is basically impossible to summarize succinctly, and must be read to truly be experienced. The plot is twisty and full of misdirection, but rewards a patient and attentive reader.

I listened to the Audible audiobook version of Surface Detail, which is narrated by Peter Kenny, and I would highly recommend experiencing the book that way. Kenny does a fantastic job of giving each character a unique voice and temperament, and that made it a lot easier to keep the huge cast straight in my mind. Also, one of my absolute favorite parts of the book was only made possible by his narration. Near the end of the book, a normally sedate alien - who Kenny gives a cutesy high-pitched voice - starts becoming seriously pissed off when his plans start falling apart. The alien becomes so foul-mouthed and sarcastic that I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I was pleased to find out that Kenny does the narration for all of Banks' novels on Audible, so I'll definitely be picking up another one sometime soon.

I think my only criticism of the book is that the ending falls a little flat. Although all of the disparate threads do end up connecting in some fashion, it still seems like an awful lot of fuss for something that feels a bit anticlimactic. However, I enjoyed the ride up until that point so very much that I wouldn't necessarily discount the resolution for not quite adding up.

Surface Detail is a hell of a book. It manages to discuss incredibly complex moral and philosophical issues in an engaging and entertaining way, all while throwing in a bit of action, terror, and humor for seasoning. It's another fine slice of Banks' particular brand of space opera, and if you've enjoyed previous Culture books, I think you'll definitely enjoy this one.

This is the third Banks "Culture" book I have read, and it took me a while to adapt my reading so as to enable me to finish the book. I can't abide Banks' multiple plots in alternating chapters or sections, so I just find the main one and page through following and enjoying that one. In this one, the main plot line featuring the Minds was well worth the reading.
The hardest thing to take about Banks' "Culture" books is the Culture itself. After three volumes, it only appears more and more like a thoroughly hedonistic society of trillions of humans, with the most interesting characters being the demigods who mind and oversee the "biologicals"— the Minds themselves. I suppose I ought to save Excession for the last, since it is described as being mostly about the Minds. In these books we find one of the most profoundly pessimistic universes in all of SF: one in which human beings really can't run their own show, but must have artificial intelligences to supervise their society and provide the ultimate interface between them and other species.

Banks writes mainstream literature. He also writes science fiction. He saves the big questions for his science fiction, because you can't address big questions in mainstream fiction. Nobody would take you seriously.

So it's a fun book, but it's also a book about the Problem of Evil. Are you sure God's not a psychopath? What's the difference between living in a perfect simulation and living with an omniscient deity? It might even be self-referential; I wonder if for Banks writing a Culture novel has become a bit hellish.

Surface Detail is not Banks' very best work, but it's good. I suggest reading Use of Weapons first, or rereading if it's been a while. The plot is complex, it might be worth taking notes to track the twists and turns along the way - including charting out the relationships between aliens, ships and so on. One character seems to have been entirely a red herring, I wonder if Banks really plotted this one all the way through before he started.

You'll find there are three Devils of varying degrees of nastiness, that the Angels are not necessarily nice, and the most likeable Angel is a Devil (Demeisen). Banks is more explicit than usual in describing the way Minds use their puppets; including a Mind that warns the protagonist that she will be used. If you're new to the Culture, it will help to know that even the brightest humans is, at best, a working dog for a Mind. It also helps to know that while the Culture values the lives and comfort of sub-Minds (humans, drones, etc), it values Minds much more.

As always with Banks, looks like space opera, is really an excuse for him to tackle topics too tough for literature.

The Culture employs special technology throughout the galaxy that enables humans and aliens to select who they want to be. On the planet Sichult, powerful Veppers assisted by two of his employees, rapes and murders sex slave Lededje Y'breq; but not before she rips some skin off their leader.

The Culture artificial intelligence on a nearby starship resurrects Lededje. She is expected to enact vengeance for her homicide. At the same time, a debate within the Culture leadership continues over what to do about evil sinners like Veppers and his minions. Some insist they should be transported to cyber Hells to suffer punishment until either redeemed or eternity whichever comes first while others insist the more humane response is capital punishment.

The latest Culture space thriller (see Transition and Matter) is an incredible accomplishment as Iain M. Banks shifts effortlessly between reality and virtually so much so the reader will wonder what real is and what fantasy is. Fast-paced from the haunting opening assault and never slowing down, fans of the saga will love this powerful entry while newcomers will be searching for the backlist.

Harriet Klausner

I'm not happy to agree with most critical reviews, but, as a longtime fan of Mr. Banks, I found this book rather disappointing. The novel has too many points of view (at least six main ones and several others) and too many plots intertwining, and the reader feels often disoriented. As highlighted by some reviewers, the main novelty of this work are probably the virtual hells, and they deserved a better development in the story. Lededje's quest for revenge and Vatueil's experience in the virtual 'confliction' are also interesting. However, mixed together, they create a story a little shallow and confusing and therefore not entirely enjoyable by the reader. I'm looking forward to reading Hydrogen Sonata, which seems to be the natural development of this novel, in the hope it has a better plot.