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Rating:  -
Eight hundred years ago, during the war between the Culture and the Idiran's the current Hub of Masaq' Orbital was part of a force that destroyed two stars (The Twin Novae Battle) and ended a war. The Chelgrians have just signed an armistice that ended their Caste War (which was instigated by the Culture) in which over 5 billion souls perished. Quildan, lost his love and half his body during this war. Ziller, the greatest composer on Chel, has gone into self-exile on the Culture Orbital Masaq'.
The two Chelgrians are on a collision, which will culminate in a genocidal act of suicide, when Ziller's symphony to honor the light from Twin Novae reaching Masaq. What and how the act will be accomplished is unknown but the secret has been discovered by the xeno-anthropologist Uagen Zlepe who is studying a Behemothaur halfway across the galaxy. Can he get back to Culture space in time.
Banks has created an amazing universe, populated by exotic creatures and worlds. Reading the narrative is almost as much fun as trying to figure out who everyone is and what part they will play in coming battle.
Rating:  -
from the back cover of the November 2002 Pocket Books paperback edition
cover art by Jerry Vanderstelt
Eight hundred years after the most horrific battle of the Idiran war, light from its catastrophic, world-destroying detonations is about to reach the Masaq' Orbital, home to the far-flung Culture's most adventurous and decadent souls. There it will fall upon Masaq's 50 billion inhabitants, gathered to commemorate the deaths of the innocent and to reflect, if only for a moment, on what some call the Culture's own complicity in the terrible event.
Also journeying to Masaq' is Major Quilan, an emissary from the war-ravaged world of Chel. In the aftermath of the conflict that split his world apart, most believe he has come to Masaq' to bring home Chel's most brilliant star, the self-exiled celebrity Composer Ziller.
Ziller suspects Quilan has come to murder him, but the major's true assignment will have far greater consequences than the death of a mere political dissident. He is part of a conspiracy more ambitious than he can know - a mission his superiors have buried so deeply in his mind that even he cannot remember it.
Rating: -
I have read some of Banks' other novels and enjoyed them as well, particularly Player of Games, Inversions, and Use of Weapons. I read Banks Science Fiction because he is obviously a brilliant guy who has a lot of fun with the genre. The thing is, there's a lot of smart folks writing science fiction, but they often write flat characters or flat worlds or both. Banks is literate and interesting and he has something to say. I am not a die hard science fiction fan, but when I do read it, I look for something that will provide a sense of wonder and leave me thinking for days after. Banks accomplishes this as does Robert Charles Wilson (especially Blind Lake). Look to Windward is as good a place as any to start with Banks. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Rating: -
Mysterious, subtle and thoughtful. Less of a mindless space adventure story with juvenile one dimensional space morons(i.e. Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction behemoth) than a crime fiction novel of sorts that moves with wit and finess, inexorably towards its ultimate conclusion.
Quilan is a Chel. A member of a nation moving out of the shadow of a sudden and violent civil war. It's relationship with the vast Culture civilisation is ambiguous. Quilan is sent as an emissary to a Culture orbital to meet with a famous Chel exile. As we move through the book the past of the central character is slowly peeled away as both he and the reader come to understand the implications fo his terrible mission.Muhahahaha!
This is one of those rare novels that reminds one of how truly satisfying it is to read, wrapped in blankets or draped across a sofa with a coffee in easy reach. The repartee between the Culture figures is almost Vancian (as in Jack Vance)in its quick indulgent interplay. There is little of Bank's (at times maligned) penchant for descriptive violence. Rather mystery blends deliciously with succulent characterization in this truly worthy addition to Bank's Culture series. I growled at times at pointless scences reading through 'Consider Phlebas'(esp the eater scene on a Caribbean-esque beach - Nice book title though!)Such superfluity has been truly expunged in this tight novel. Here I whoopped and chuckled with joy and delight as I read, locking myself in the bathroom so that I might finish it undisturbed by my family. It is perhaps Bank's finest work; Subtle in ways many people seem not to have picked up on. Ho ho.
If you enjoy this then do all you can to read any of Jack Vance's works. The Demon Princes series is as good a place as any to start.
Rating: -
Look to Windward is the seventh book in Banks' science fiction universe based on a utopian society of advanced artificial intelligences and the humans (and other organic life forms) that originally created them, loosely termed the Culture. With each book, Banks has built his plots out of the interstitial area where the idea of this utopia fails, typically in its dealings with other, different societies, through its para-military/intelligence arm called Special Circumstances. This time, the Culture has interferred in the "advancement" of another society, failing miserably, and then must deal with the diplomatic fallout from their actions. That the other society, the Chelgria was a predator-based race with a rigid class structure and a warlike demeanor, makes this all the more difficult.
On this backdrop is placed several interesting characters: the Chelgrian Ziller, a composer who has ex-patriated himself because of his support for the rebels who attempted to overthrow the class structure, and wishes to have nothing to do with his old society or race; the Chelgrian emissary, Quinlan, whose despair over losing his wife in the war between the traditionalists and the rebels will drive him to commit the unthinkable; and the orbital Mind known as Masaq', who has hosted Ziller for years and asked the composer to create a new symphony based on the fading light of two suns--suns that went nova two thousand years ago when Masaq', as a warship, set off a chain reaction that destroyed them and the two orbitals around them.
As in his other novels, this one has several storylines to follow that eventually come together by the climax. Each storyline is given its own chapters, which some people find difficult to follow but I've always enjoyed, although it makes keeping track of the story much more difficult when the time spent reading the book occurs over weeks rather than hours.
It's not that Banks brings anything new to science fiction in his Culture novels; even the Culture itself can be found by looking at some mixture of Cordwainer Smith and Isaac Asimov. His ideas are culled from the classics as well, as in this book the orbital is roughly Larry Niven's "ringworld" mixed with John Varley's world-mind Gaea from his Titan trilogy. But what Banks can do better than those four, and a host of other published SF writers, is create believable characters whose motivations mesh with the unlikely locations and situations he sets for them. There's a reason why this type of SF is called space opera, but in Banks' hands it refers not to the televised soap operas but the sturm und drang of classical music. Yes, there are exaggerations here, but when a Banks' character has amnesia, it becomes a thematic device, not just a crutch to get you from one chapter to the next.
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