Iain Banks

A Chelgrian emissary is sent to the Masaq' Orbital to bring Ziller, a famous but reclusive Chelgrian composer, home, on a mission that also has a top-secret purpose that will take him on a haunting odyssey into his own past and into memories of terrible war that cost billions of lives and whose legacy threatens the present. Reprint.

Look to Windward

Gavin

Another chronicle of Culture fuckups; this time, trying to reform a caste system and sparking a genocidal civil war. It's tense and unpleasant throughout, because of this moral mud.


  

   'You want to die because your mate is dead and you are pining for her, is that not the truth?'
 'I would put it a little stronger than pining. But it was her death that took the meaning out of my life.'
 'The lives of your family and your society in this time of need and restructuring; these mean nothing to you?'
 'Not nothing, Estodien. But not enough, either. I wish that I could feel otherwise, but I cannot. It is as though all the people I care about but feel I ought to care about more are already in another world from the one I inhabit.'
 'She was just... a person, just one individual. What makes her so special that her memory... outranks the more pressing needs of those still alive for whom something can still be done?'
 'Nothing, Estodien. It is-'
 'Nothing indeed. It is not her memory; it is yours. It is not her specialness or uniqueness that you celebrate, Quilan, but your own. You are a romantic, Quilan. You find the idea of tragic death romantic, you find the idea of joining her - even if it is joining her in oblivion - romantic.' The old male drew himself up as though getting ready to go. 'I hate romantics, Quilan. They do not really know themselves, but what is worse they do not really want to know themselves - or, ultimately, anybody else - because they think that will take the mystery out of life. They are fools. You are a fool.'

Kyle S

One of the slower books in the Culture series, but man does it pack a big emotional punch. I'd put this up there with Use of Weapons for Culture books that are well worth the read.

Nat Welch

I just couldn't get into this one like I did the other culture books. Interesting premise, but just too damn slow.

Tao Oat

Shane Segal

It was one of the less glorious incidents of a long-ago war. It led to the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported. Now, eight hundred years later, the light from the first of those ancient mistakes has reached the Culture Orbital, Masaq'. The light from the second may not. 'Confirms Banks as the standard by which the rest of SF is judged' GUARDIAN 'In terms of sheer storytelling prowess and verve, Look to Windward is a work of genius' SFX 'A great book' NEW SCIENTIST

Sherry

Stephen Campbell

Hannah Swithinbank

Greg Copeland

Kevin Finlayson

Scordatura

Iain M. Banks

The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of the Idiran war, and one of the most horrific: desperate to avert their inevitable defeat, the Idirans had induced not one but two suns to explode, snuffing out worlds and biospheres teeming with sentient life. They were attacks of incredible proportion—gigadeathcrimes. But the war ended, and life went on. Now, eight hundred years later, light from the first explosion is about to reach the Masaq' Orbital, home to the 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 and self-exiled dissident, the honored Composer Ziller. Ziller claims he will do anything to avoid a meeting with Major Quilan, who he suspects has come to murder him. But the Major's true assignment will have far greater consequences than the death of a mere political dissident, as part of a conspiracy more ambitious than even he can know—a mission his superiors have buried so deeply in his mind that even he cannot remember it. Hailed by SFX magazine as "an excellent hopping-on point if you've never read a Banks SF novel before," Look to Windward is an awe-inspiring immersion into the wildly original, vividly realized civilization that Banks calls the Culture.

Look to Windward

Reviews