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Takes you into a whole new area of the Culture, where the AI minds discuss the problems that are occuring since the presence of an unidentified object. It is riddled with Banks' usual wit... more

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for Excession - Iain M. Banks

Rating Summary based on 9 reviews

  • 5 Stars
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  • Characters
  • How does it compare to other works by the same author?
  • How does it compare to similar books?
  • Readability
  • Story
  • 4.1
  • 4.1
  • 4.3
  • 4.0
  • 4.1
  • 30 of 30 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of gorvifal3

    gorvifal3

    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Highly imaginative, interesting characters, original story and concepts

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Complicated plot, complicated technical discussions

    Iain M.Banks is the name used by the author Iain Banks who has written novels such as the Wasp Factory, Canal Dreams and the Crow Road. Banks has added the middle initial to his name to distinguish books that would be classed as science fiction. Excession is one of Banks’ later science fiction novels, for this reason you would need to have read some of his earlier works as the book is quite complicated. Excession assumes the reader already knows about certain concepts and ideas that Banks has dreamed up. For this reason I can’t recommend reading Excession unless you have read some of the ... more
  • 15 of 15 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of Andrew19111

    Andrew19111

    5 Stars Cultured 16/08/2001
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages The most imaginative thing I've read for ages

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Not to everybody's taste

    I can’t be too knowledgeable about the bulk of this guy’s work as I’ve only encountered three of his books: Consider Phelebas, Excession and The Business. The first two are sci-fi and the second in the vein of Michael Crichton. I’m writing about the first two; more specifically about the setting they’re in and why I think it’s a work of near-genius. Consider Phelebas & Excession are set in what IMB calls the Culture Universe. Before I attempt to explain this, I’d like to point out to those of you might go off and get these books that IMB shares a trait ... more
  • 2 of 3 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of NeilHudson

    NeilHudson

    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Original, well-plotted

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Difficult to understand on its own

    The inevitable has happened. Humans, after leaving so much of the running of the known universe to its powerful artificially intelligent Minds, are no longer interesting enough to form the basis of a plot. Excession is largely the story of machines. As Banks admits early on, the Minds occasionally “forgot to tell everybody else about finding entire stellar civilisations, or took it upon themselves to alter the course of a developed culture”. Such a conspiracy forms the real meat of the plot of Excession, as a rogue group uses the appearance of an inexplicable object (and you know from page 1 ... more
  • 4 of 5 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of chrissimpson

    chrissimpson

    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Look into the mind of a spacecraft

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Requires much concentration

    Anyone who believes this book is nonsense needs their head examining. This has to be one of the most truly original books I have ever read. Most of the dialogue is conducted between enormous sentient spacecraft which are thousands of light years away from each other. I'll admit it can be hard going at times but it's certainly worth it in the end. Amongst other insights, you are let in on the ambitions of these sentient craft who in their spare time devise universes based on different physical laws. The book revolves around an amomaly in space that intrigues the Culture and their investigations ... more
  • 6 of 6 Ciao users found the following review helpful
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    Fearghul

    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Excellent plot and interesting twists...

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Rather complex and not for everyone...

    This book is a part of Iain Bank's series of "Culture" novels, it's a look at a future society run by Minds, super intelligent AI's that run all the stations and ships that make up a vast interstellar group. The novel starts with the apperance of a strange anomaly in a remote reigion of space and then follows the actions of both the Minds and the citizens of various races as they react to this stimuli. The book is complicated and involving to read, requiring some mental agility to understand in places. Some may find this a welcome challenge that adds to the joy of reading the book, but others ... more

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for Excession - Iain M. Banks

Product Details

Type Fiction
Genre Science Fiction
Title Excession
Author Iain M. Banks
ISBN 1857233948; 185723457X

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