Books - Excession

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	Books - Excession

Excession is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1996.

Summary

It is the fourth of his books to feature the Culture. It is a large-scale space opera, with a complex plot following many characters across large volumes of space.

Description

The book details the Culture's response to an "Outside Context Problem", the Excession of the title (essentially a Big Dumb Object), is a perfect black-body sphere that appears mysteriously on the edges of Culture space. It appears to be older than the Universe itself. The Excession is mysterious and ineffable for a while, and then disappears.

One of the main plot elements is the relationship between the Culture and a civilization appropriately named the Affront, a sadistic species which views all other sentient beings (including other members of their own species) as tools for their amusement. Rapid Offensive Units stored during peacetime in the asteroid Pittance are the focus of a double-cross within the Culture. Genar-Hofoen, a Culture diplomat and his ex-lover Contact agent Dajeil; the Zetetic Elench, who split from the main body of the Culture; and the eccentric ship GCU Grey Area, all play parts.

Messages between ships, which resemble e-mails or instant messages, are used as a stylistic device.

Analysis

The book, more than any of the other Culture novels, focuses on the Culture's Minds as protagonists.

When asked about his focus on the possibilities of technology in fiction, Banks said about the book:

'You can't escape the fact that humanity is a technological species, homo technophile or whatever the Latin is. Technology is neither good or bad, it's up to the user. We can't escape what we are, which is a technological species. There's no way back.'

Banks brings sublimation into his Culture for the first time here. It becomes an important plot device in Look to Windward
.

Bibliography

Excession, Iain M. Banks, London: Orbit, 1996, ISBN 1857233948

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Excession ]

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