OT, but, with a few exceptions (the Wasp Factory, the Bridge, and to be honest I'm not sure how even they would stand up to re-reading) can anyone tell me why Bank's books are considered anything other than bog standard potboiling tripe?
The writing is so-so, the plotting, well, ok the plotting is a bit above average but not much, but the thing that really gets me is the blatant beardie scottish communist wish fulfilment. In EVERY book, more or less. Can we have interesting characters we care about, responding in a nuanced way to difficult challenges? No, because the right answer is the one that would be most likely to be approved of by a beardie scottish communist.
Complicity was a good case in point, because the vigilante character was in every way as unpleasant as the people he attacked, (in fact rather more so), and I really don't think Banks noticed that his (Bank's) violent revenge fantasies were as bad as the two dimensional capitalist hate figures he set up for his characters to attack. If he did, the main character's decision to let the vigilante go at the end is inexplicable.
And although he deserves some credit for the central conceit of the Culture (ie the machines are in charge) he then pretty much ducks the central problem that that throws up (ie that no one wants to read a novel about robots, which is no doubt why sci fi futures generally are surprisingly light on machines). Why the actions of any human are remotely important in the culture universe is not dealt with. Isn't it the same as writing a novel about 20th century earth and having ants as the main characters?
Oh and the more fantastical novels are incredibly repetitious. OK, someone like JG Ballard repeats himself too, but Ballard is a genius and Banks is, not.
IMHO for sci fi read Banks back to back with anything by Ken MacLeod or Peter Hamilton and you'll never read another Banks again, for the other stuff, same point but with Ballard or, I don't know, Russell Hoban.
Bookmarks