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The Hydrogen Sonata (Culture), by Iain M. Banks
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The New York Times bestselling Culture novel...
The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, provably, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization.
An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.
Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted - dead, not alive. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago.
It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely to prove its most perilous.
- Sales Rank: #493513 in Books
- Brand: Banks, Iain
- Published on: 2013-09-10
- Released on: 2013-09-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.50" w x 5.50" l, 1.04 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 544 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"This rich, sweeping panorama of heroism and folly celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Culture, Banks's far-future semi-utopian society.... The action tumbles along at a dizzying pace, bouncing among a fascinating array of characters and locales. It's easy to see why Banks's fertile, cheerfully nihilistic imagination and vivid prose have made the Culture space operas bestsellers and award favorites."―Publishers Weekly
"One of Banks' best Culture novels to date."―Booklist on The Hydrogen Sonata
"It's fantastically good fun that throws in some big ideas about life, the universe and everything, and like the unabashed leftie that he is, Banks manages to get in there a few sizable shots at unthinking, dogmatic religiosity for good measure."―SciFi Now
"Banks's charming prose and the scale of his imagination continue to delight Culture vultures."―SFX
"The Culture, the post-scarcity, hedonistic, Machiavellian, libertarian, arse-kicking science-fiction society created by the late Iain M. Banks...one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future."―The Guardian
"Incomparable entertainment, with fascinating and highly original characters, challenging ideas and extrapolations, and dazzling action...sheer delight."―Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Iain Banks came to controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987. He is now widely acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.
Most helpful customer reviews
82 of 97 people found the following review helpful.
Banks back on form in the Culture
By Keris Nine
The Culture series can always be counted on for showing Iain Banks' writing at its best and the Hydrogen Sonata proves to be no exception to the rule. If we haven't really had the full-on science-fiction ideas combined with explosive action experience since Excession, the series thereafter has shown a certain maturity, slowing down the pace to consider philosophical and metaphysical questions brought up in that book relating to the Other Side, on questions of Life, Death, Oblivion and the nature of what lies beyond the material world. Those questions are to the fore again in The Hydrogen Sonata, thoughtfully considered and brilliantly interweaved into the whole culture of the Culture, but happily Banks' writing and the plot surrounding the story is once again at a dazzling level of wit and brilliance that we haven't seen from this author for a long time indeed.
You might not expect that from the initial premise, where yet another civilisation, the Gzilt, have reached that stage in their evolution where, tired of existing with the mundane realm of matter and energy, they've made the collective decision to Sublime, crossing over to that indefinable place (between the seventh and eleventh dimensions we discover here) where all advanced cultures and civilisations eventually accede and effectively retire. Some are surprised that the Gzilt have decided to make the big jump at this stage in their development, but with only 23 days left until the Instigation, many have already crossed over, leaving only a small remainder of their people to take care of the final ceremonies and housekeeping formalities, fending off Scavenger races and generally dealing with any last minute business that might crop up. Inevitably, one ship turns up with a big surprise for the Gzilt, and suddenly chaos erupts. The ship Minds of the Culture, and undoubtedly Special Circumstances, are of course very interested in the rumours that abound around the incident and send ships in to observe the final frenetic days of the Gzilt.
Well, "observe" is of course a vague and rather passive term for the inquisitive intervention of the Culture, and of course it involves them gathering intelligence, searching for certain artifacts, transporting and in some cases reanimating stored individuals who might be able to satisfy their curiosity. If I'm totally honest, there's nothing new in this - there's a lot of running around and a lot of confusion where you aren't quite sure what's going on sometimes, the usual conspiracies, bad guys and big secrets which may or may not prove to be anything more than a red herring (I hate it when he does that), and some usual gung-ho intervention - sorry, observation - from the Culture ships and SC operatives (presumably, but who knows?), with an innocent - usually female - figure caught up in it all. It doesn't matter in the slightest when Banks has a concept as good as that of the Culture to play around with (if you haven't read a Culture book before, it won't matter either, because the author sums up the ideas concisely very early on, before getting straight on to business with little formality) and when his writing is as polished and witty as it is here, principally in all forms of interaction between the characters and, as you would expect, between the ship Minds.
After the rather serious and grim tone of more recent Culture books - fine though most of them have been - and great as it is to see Banks' writing at his funniest, it's the intelligence of the ideas underpinning the work and the deeper questions that they raise that make this science-fiction writing of the highest order. Since Look to Windward, the author has spent a great deal of time exploring these concepts relating to the non-material world beyond the Culture universe and offered tantalising glimpses of another reality, and he takes that another step further here in The Hydrogen Sonata, leaving just enough in reserve for further expansion. I'm not sure how long he can continue to draw this theme out, and indeed the latest book is somewhat repetitive of a formula established in all his recent SF books, but the richness and intelligence of the Culture concept still seems to inspire the author's best writing and The Hydrogen Sonata is the most entertaining work we've had from Mr Banks in a long time.
43 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
Channeling Douglas Adams, but mostly serious
By Baslim the Beggar
I do love the "Culture" novels. They represent interesting ways of looking at interactions of alien civilizations. And, of course, they feature the Minds... those AIs who make up the real power of the Culture. I have had many a good snicker or outright laugh at Banks names for the Minds (check Wikipedia for a list). The keen intellects have a taste for whimsy, but a very, very serious side as enforcers for the Culture, especially those associated with Special Circumstances. I am pleased that Banks spends more time now with the Minds. His earlier stories are quite good, but he really has been taking off in the last few books.
My title refers to the fact that when I read some of the text, I hear the narrator from "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy," especially when Banks capitalizes words in sentences. For example I might write that the story revolves around A Really Big Secret, but when Banks writes something like that, you grin. (Well, I do.) Probably also has to do with Brit phrases creeping in now and then. All good with me. There is definitely a lot of humor in the book. Remember, Luke, Leia & Han in the garbage compartment? Banks goes one better (or should I say worse?) here, and it is perfectly plausible.
The truth about composer's intent for the piece of music called "The Hydrogen Sonata" has such irony as to be both sad and terribly funny. Banks has a lot of nice touches in the book. But the book is, as my title indicates, mostly serious. The humor is secondary or tertiary.
The book is a minor travelogue. Some very interesting places are visited. Imagine a race like McDevitt's Monument Builders, but building on a planetary scale. We visit an Orbital (a Ringworld type object), where in a remote desert section, an AI is building an analog to a waterworks... A place where some race drilled holes through mountains to turn them into giant organ pipes played by the wind... A repository of a race's artifacts, including... no, you'll have to read that part...
But there is this background of a race opting out of "The Real" to the "Sublime." This is, in some ways like the transcendence in "Fire in the Deep," but different. It is literally making a jump, as a race, to another dimension, where, to use the expression from another book, the individual minds (biological or AI) are "vastened." Banks has mentioned the Sublimed before, but we get a little closer look this time around, just as in "Surface Detail" we got a look at "life" in a Virtual Reality.
It's mostly a one-way trip. Supposedly everything is better... but is it? Communications with the Sublimed tend to be scarce. It's a definite "leap of faith" and our story takes place in the last 24 days before a race of humanoids (Gzilt) who helped found the "The Culture" (but who never joined it) takes the plunge to Sublime. By the way, Banks' choice of the the word Sublime is sublime!
That's when a ship from the inheritors of a race who had left some of their technology to the Gzilt, shows up. And their message is that the main text that help guide the Gzilt in building their civilization was a fraud. Murder happens, and a cover-up is attempted... But those snoopy Culture Minds get wind, and want to know the truth... and off we go!
Did I forget to mention that a very old humanoid, alive when the Culture was founded, is a key to the truth? Banks tries to address the question of how and more particularly why, someone would want to live that long (over 9000 years at the time of this book). There is some philosophical meat in the book, including the usual questions arising from making duplicates of one's self, and can one distinguish a simulation from reality.
There is plenty of action and many more interesting ideas than I have yet mentioned. Readers of Banks earlier Culture books know how different the Minds can be from each other. It appears that not only can the Minds become eccentrics, but that they can "go native" with non-Culture civilizations.
So many ideas! Banks reminds me why I fell in love with science fiction so long ago.
35 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
"Knife missiles."
By Matthew Davidson
I spent the Summer re-reading all the Culture novels, so they're fresh in my mind for comparison. There is usually something that resonates long afterward; a character, a concept, a turn of plot, but why does The Hydrogen Sonata leave me empty?
There doesn't seem to be a problem with narrative drive or pacing. The book zips along and there is plenty of action. It could be the characters. While the primary Mind Mistake Not... is the most fleshed out character, the humanoid protagonist is thinly drawn. There certainly isn't a scene stealer like Demeisen or Skaffen-Amtiskaw in this book. What was the point of the familiar other than a lost opportunity? No other Gzilt had a familiar. Then there is the question of motivation. The entire Gzilt society is behaving (appropriately) like a High School senior class in May, but what is the motivation for everyone else?
The book feels quickly written and disconnected. At this point, if Banks writes a culture novel, it will translate to a certain amount of money. I'd hate to think this was his motivation, but it doesn't feel like it was a story he 'had' to get out of his system.
The Hydrogen Sonata has all the elements of a Culture novel that I'm deeply interested in such as an important musical reference, plenty of chatter among Minds, and a setting that allows for the examination of deep philosophical questions. Does it matter? This question comes up multiple times. Arguably, it is the point of the book. It is also how I feel after finishing it.
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