Books in March 2020

Somehow, I've managed to go significantly ahead of the target I set myself for the year. I suspect that I'm using books as an escape from 2020. It'll be interesting to see if it continues.

Consider Phlebas (Iain M Banks)

I accidentally opened Consider Phlebas whilst reinstalling books on my Kindle which had decided to reset, and then I couldn't put it down. This is not the first time that this has happened.

I first read the book at whilst at University in Southampton. I was looking for a new SF book in WH Smiths (back when it was a proper bookshop) during a lunch break from my part-time job unsuccessfully selling computers at Silica Shop in Debenhams and stumbled across it. I couldn't put it down and over the next few weeks burned through everything Banks had written (both as Iain M. Banks and Iain Banks) at the time.

The book follows the story of a Changer, a modified human who can act as a doppelganger, taking the form of others whilst acting as a spy and secret agent. Horza works for the Idirians, a tri-legged hegemonistic alien race who have come into conflict with 'The Culture'. The Culture is a utopian society built on a lack of scarcity, with no need for money, run by benign AIs. The Changer is philosophically opposed to the Culture, disliking machine intelligences, and works for the intelligence services, part of the less fundamentalist supremacist Idirian elements.

His first mission starts of messily, and just as he is briefed on his next mission, the warship he is on is attacked by a Culture ship. He escapes and decides to try to complete the mission anyway. The story proceeds with Bank's trademark style of action-packed SF blended with gore, sex, violence and utopian visions. It's a rag-tag mission against impossible odds as Horza attempts to retrieve a lost Culture Mind (AI) which has landed on a planet held inviolate as a memorial by a powerful alien race.

Great book, and you've got to love the Culture ship names.

The Player of Games (Iain M Banks)

Re-reading Consider Phlebas made me decide to revisit some more of Iain M. Banks, so I headed for the second book in the Culture setting. Unlike the first, this isn't one that I've revisited since I initially read it.

The story follows one of the top game players in the Culture as he is drawn into the machinations of the Culture's Contact section when they arrange for him to represent them in a six-yearly formal game contest. The game is Azad, and it is the same name as the Empire where it is played. The Empire of Azad is a brutal, almost Nazi-like regime which conquers other races and humiliates and/or eliminates them. The game is used to determine the standings of the Establishment, from the Emperor down. It can build or break careers and lives and is taken very seriously. The climax of the games are held on a fire planet as a global firestorm passes over a fortress.

The Azadians assume that the protagonist will lose early as he doesn't know the game and is an alien. When he starts winning, it causes shockwaves and politics and machinations ensue. Besides the political schemes, the story is interesting because it explores why we play games. The protagonist's motivations change over time, becoming less and less abstract.

I should have re-read this before now.

To Die in Vienna (Kevin Wignall)

I bought this on impulse and read it as a counter-point to the SF that I've dived into this month. When it started, I was sceptical whether it would hold my interest or be much good, but it definitely delivers. Freddie is a surveillance contractor, based in Vienna, whose current assignment is a Chinese scientist working at the university. He doesn't know why he's monitoring Cheng, but it's an escape for him. He used to work for an American intelligence agency but quit after a mission went bad.

He's set in a routine, and then someone tries to kill him when he gets home. He finds his principal has disappeared and the surveillance set up he has in place has been dismantled. Realising that the people doing this are professionals, he has to find a way to survive and find out what is happening.

I liked this book and will look up the film when it's released.

Century Rain (Alastair Reynolds)

This was my second reading of Century Rain and I enjoyed it much more than the first, probably because I came to it bereft of the assumption that it was going to be like one of the Revelation Space series books.

The novel is a melange of noir, spy fiction, alternative history, and conflict between the transhuman Slashers and the advanced, but nanotech rejecting Threshers. The story moves between an Earth in 1959 where history has diverged from our own and a future where Earth has been rendered uninhabitable through the action of uncontrolled nanomachines.

The mix works, but it's very different. Sometimes there's an edge of info-dump, but it's a complicated and interesting read. Returning to the book, I've raised it to a four-star rating because I think its stronger than I gave it credit for when I first read it.

I enjoyed listening to "Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate"'s nine-minute prog-rock track of the same name as the novel inspired by the book whilst I was reading it.

The October Man (Ben Aaronovitch)

I enjoyed The October Man, which is a short novella set in Germany in the Rivers of London series. It reminded me how fresh the series felt when I started reading the books and was different yet familiar enough to catch the attention. This is standalone from the main sequence, so you could easily read it as a first introduction to the series without any real spoilers. The plot develops quickly and is entertaining. I'd happily read more in this branch of the setting.

Use of Weapons (Iain M Banks)

This was the first Iain M Banks book that completely floored me. The first time that I read it, I ended up immediately re-reading it because I didn't see the ending coming. Sadly, on re-reading the impact is lessened, as I know where it's going to. That said, the way it gets there is subtle and I enjoyed the book greatly.

Overtly, this is a story about the Culture meddling in the politics of a star cluster to try and avoid a war. A Special Circumstances agent, Cheradenine Zakalwe, one of their best operatives is pulled from retirement to carry out the mission. However, the story is really about Zakalwe; what motivates him and how has his background shaped him into the dangerous agent which he is now. He works for the Culture but is not of the Culture.

I enjoyed revisiting this greatly; it's not my favourite Culture novel, but it is one of the best.