The Hydrogen Sonata

Starred review from August 27, 2012
This rich, sweeping panorama of heroism and folly celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Culture, Banksâs far-future semi-utopian society. The Gzilt, a civilization affiliated with the Culture, is only days away from leaving this reality for the Sublime, a condition of intense, hyper-real wonderfulness, when some of the Cultureâs self-aware spaceships catch hints that the Gziltâs decision to enter the Sublime may be based on a hoax. Vyr Cossont, a young, four-armed Gzilt musician, falls into the conflict as ships and their avatars try to figure out whatâs going on and then decide what to do about it, while powerful opponents attempt to stall the inquiry until time runs out. The action tumbles along at a dizzying pace, bouncing among a fascinating array of characters and locales. Itâs easy to see why Banksâs fertile, cheerfully nihilistic imagination and vivid prose have made the Culture space operas bestsellers and award favorites.

Starred review from September 15, 2012
Addition to Banks' wonderful space-opera series (without the middle initial, he also writes impressive mainstream novels) about the far-future galactic Culture (Surface Detail, 2010, etc.), a liberal-anarchic, multispecies civilization guided and sustained, more or less invisibly, by Minds, artificial intelligences that take such physical forms as spaceships and habitats. Vastly more intelligent than humans, millions of times faster and mostly benevolent, Minds are truly godlike entities. (Asked "Is this what gods would actually be like?" Banks replied: "If we're lucky.") Now, the Gzilt civilization, an almost perversely peaceful military society whose precepts arise from the Book of Truth, an ancient tome containing technological and intellectual predictions nearly all of which have proved correct, are preparing to Sublime, or vanish, into a set of higher dimensions where existence is thought to be almost infinitely rich and complex. As the Gzilt make their preparations, several rather primitive scavenger species gather nearby (one ship comes into orbit, as Banks puts it, with the "warp-engine equivalent of loud clanks and clouds of black smoke"), ready to grab whatever goodies the Gzilt leave behind. But then, a sudden, devastating attack destroys the Gzilt Regimental High Command. The reason seems to involve a shattering secret about the Book of Truth and the establishment of the Culture 10,000 years ago. One of the few survivors, reserve Lt. Cmdr. Vyr Cossont, a bewildered four-armed musician with, self-confessedly, no military skills, receives orders to locate and question Ngaroe QiRia, possibly the Culture's oldest living person and the only one who might have some idea why the Book of Truth is so important and what really happened 10 millennia ago. Problem is, even assisted by Berdle, a powerful Mind avatar, and an erratic battle android who's convinced everything's merely a simulation, can she survive long enough to complete her mission? Scotland-resident Banks' Culture yarns, the science-fiction equivalent of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, brim with wit and wisdom, providing incomparable entertainment, with fascinating and highly original characters, challenging ideas and extrapolations, and dazzling action seamlessly embedded in a satirical-comedy matrix. Sheer delight.

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October 15, 2012

Banks's latest Culture novel (after Surface Detail and Matter) is about the search for a 9800-year-old man. The hunter is a young musician who lives in Girdlecity, a sculpted city that wraps around an entire planet. She's added a second pair of arms to her body to play that famously difficult instrument, the elevenstring. Her people are preparing to Sublime--to leave this universe and translate en masse to another, body-free plane of existence. Their holy book urges them to do this. The book always proved true in the past, but what if it is a hoax, foisted on them eons ago by alien tricksters? The 9800-year-old man may know the answer, but first she has to find him. VERDICT Banks's novels set in the alt-universe of the Culture are richly peopled with sentient beings, from energy people to ship Minds to all kinds of humanoids, insectoids, and what have you. No matter how exotic a detail, as Banks describes it, it's credible. And his stories grab your attention. Of interest not only to sf fans but also to lovers of good prose and plotting. [See Prepub Alert, 6/13/12; the author also writes noir fiction as Iain Banks.--Ed.]--David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2012
The widespread popularity of Banks' Culture novels, which chronicle the escapades of a technologically superior humanoid species, has made him the bestselling sf writer in the UK. The latest Culture installment recounts the fate of the Gzilt civilization, a now-estranged Culture cofounder, which is preparing to join untold other societies in the Sublime, a realm of virtual immortality located somewhere in hyperspace. With mere days remaining before the great transition, Gzilt leaders are busy deciding which scavenger species can inherit a wealth of soon-to-be-abandoned technology when one of the Gzilts' starships is destroyed in an apparent attempt to sabotage the Subliming. Field Lieutenant Vyr Cossont is dispatched to find a 900-year-old Culture citizen presumed to be linked to the saboteur but quickly becomes the manhunt's chief target when the Gzilt Regimental Command is also destroyed. Banks' mesmerizing, far-reaching narrative includes a wide assortment of colorful characters, from the musically gifted Cossont and her conniving Culture-made android to a sentient starship that joins in the chase. One of Banks' best Culture novels to date.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)