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Feersum Endjinn (S.F. MASTERWORKS) by Iain M. Banks
A cloud of space dust is advancing on Earth, threatening to destroy all life. The task of saving the planet falls to the Chapel Engineers, an organization of scientific consciences, many of whose bodies are dead, plugged into a computer network. Count Alandre Sessine VII has already died seven times, but the wonders of the vast net of technological memory have kept his soul alive. Now he has only one life left--one chance to catch his killer.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Iain M. Banks
59 books6,565 followersIain M. Banks is a pseudonym of Iain Banks which he used to publish his Science Fiction.
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife.
Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1992. However, he announced in early 2007 that, after 25 years together, they had separated. He lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence.
In late 2004, Banks was a prominent member of a group of British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. In an interview in Socialist Review he claimed he did this after he "abandoned the idea of crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns." He related his concerns about the invasion of Iraq in his book Raw Spirit, and the principal protagonist (Alban McGill) in the novel The Steep Approach to Garbadale confronts another character with arguments in a similar vein.
Interviewed on Mark Lawson's BBC Four series, first broadcast in the UK on 14 November 2006, Banks explained why his novels are published under two different names. His parents wished to name him Iain Menzies Banks but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and he was officially registered as Iain Banks. Despite this he continued to use his unofficial middle name and it was as Iain M. Banks that he submitted The Wasp Factory for publication. However, his editor asked if he would mind dropping the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy". The editor was also concerned about possible confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a minor character in some of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels who is a romantic novelist. After his first three mainstream novels his publishers agreed to publish his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas. To distinguish between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M', although at one stage he considered John B. Macallan as his SF pseudonym, the name deriving from his favourite whiskies: Johnnie Walker Black Label and The Macallan single malt.
His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012.
Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June.
The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year*, would be his last.
*The Quarry was published in June 2013.
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife.
Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1992. However, he announced in early 2007 that, after 25 years together, they had separated. He lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence.
In late 2004, Banks was a prominent member of a group of British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. In an interview in Socialist Review he claimed he did this after he "abandoned the idea of crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns." He related his concerns about the invasion of Iraq in his book Raw Spirit, and the principal protagonist (Alban McGill) in the novel The Steep Approach to Garbadale confronts another character with arguments in a similar vein.
Interviewed on Mark Lawson's BBC Four series, first broadcast in the UK on 14 November 2006, Banks explained why his novels are published under two different names. His parents wished to name him Iain Menzies Banks but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and he was officially registered as Iain Banks. Despite this he continued to use his unofficial middle name and it was as Iain M. Banks that he submitted The Wasp Factory for publication. However, his editor asked if he would mind dropping the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy". The editor was also concerned about possible confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a minor character in some of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels who is a romantic novelist. After his first three mainstream novels his publishers agreed to publish his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas. To distinguish between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M', although at one stage he considered John B. Macallan as his SF pseudonym, the name deriving from his favourite whiskies: Johnnie Walker Black Label and The Macallan single malt.
His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012.
Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June.
The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year*, would be his last.
*The Quarry was published in June 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 495 reviews
April 25, 2012
Riting a revyoo as thoh I wuz Bascule seems 2 me the obveeyus cors. 1 mit even say the playd cors; the yoosd up an cleechayd cors. But a browz uv the revyoos postd on Goodreedz indicayts uderwize. I wood ½ thot bi now sumbudy wood ½ ritten a revyoo in the styl uv Bascule but it apeerz not 2 b the cays.
Thayr r meny protaguniss in Feersum Endjin but Bascule iz reely the dryvin chayractr. Hez the regyoolar gi we can idennify wif. Hez the unliklee hero frust in2 sercumstansis beyond hiz understandin or cuntrol and givin the oportoonity 2 mayk brav deesishins wif the fayt uv hyoomanity in the balans. Hiz brayvry leedz him 2 perform acts uv grayt consikwens, even if he cant c thos consikwensis frum hiz limitd perzpektiv. Bascule playz an eesentil rol in helping the gud giz win the day and he duznt even no it (until the end, enwayz). Hez juss dooin whot seemz ryt to him.
Enwayz, az u ½ now gesd, Bascule ryts in an uncunvenshinol fashin. Ubowt a ¼ uv the book, maybee a litl mor, is riten in the 1st persun by Bascule, hoo hass a lerning disubiluty. He can tok normuly but can onlee ryt foneticly. An the ofor, Ean Bankz, poolz this of brilyantly.
As I sit here attempting to write like Bascule I can tell you it isn’t as easy at it might sound. It takes some amount of concentration. And it takes some concentration to read Bascule’s account of events. It’s not for the lazy reader. Banks’ ability to write awkwardly and unfamiliarly yet make it sound like a substantive, caring, and relatable person is pretty damn amazing. But like many of Banks’ novels there's more beneath the surface. Underlying Bascule’s phonetic writing is a point of much more substance, a commentary on the struggle we humans endure to communicate with one another and with the world. It’ll take me several steps to get there, so try to hang with me ...
The world of Feersum Endjin contains too many details to paint them all, and the big picture itself is difficult to paint because you can’t stand back far enough to take it all in. Take, for example, the absurdly oversize castle called Serehfa in which much of the Earth’s population lives. We’re talking a castle built to scale for people who stand hundreds of meters tall. A castle with walls standing several kilometers high, the tops obscured by haze and the shear cliff-faces running to the horizon on your right and left. A central tower that tickles the underbelly of outer space. A structure set atop a three-kilometer tall mesa in one room that, seen from afar, looks like a chandelier lowered from the ceiling for spring cleaning. Seen up close, the chandelier is a city of elaborate, soaring, glass-paneled skyscrapers. A structure is set kilometers high in the corner of one room that, seen from afar, looks like a baroque decorative gargoyle. Seen up close the gargoyle is a residential complex where people enjoy the view from balconies in the eyes. The larger rooms have their own weather systems. One room contains a volcano. Others contain lakes and rivers and hills and valleys. The rooms in the higher levels—each level standing a couple kilometers tall—are perpetually cold, and one of them holds a year-round ski-resort. In what would be a castle’s dungeon, the somber port city of Oubliette (you heard that right) sits beside a black ocean that hasn’t seen sunlight in millennia. Now, stay with me here ...
You can visualize parts of the castle Serehfa. Your imagination has painted pictures—perhaps even detailed pictures—of the corner of one room and the centerpiece in another, of one small piece of the horizon-spanning castle walls. Your mind is busily filling in random details plucked from your memory to create a room with a volcano, and a room with lakes and rivers, hills and valleys. You know what a ski resort looks like so your mind simply places it inside a vast interior space. But visualizing the whole castle? No. Definitely not. Just a few scattered pieces that contain sufficiently familiar elements for your mind to grab on to, like a good handhold on a cliff face. But pull back and urge your imagination to paint the entire monstrosity ... and you’re hand will miss a handhold, your foot slip from a niche, and you go tumbling right on down. Still with me? Even through the mixed metaphors? Good. Let’s take the next step ...
What if the castle Serehfa was not just a physical setting for our young hero Bascule’s adventures? It’s a hell of a setting, to be sure, another example of Banks’ penchant for conceiving breathtaking, larger-than-life locales for his characters to roam. But what if Serehfa was, let’s say, a lens to focus the reader's thoughts and a pattern for those thoughts to follow ... an archetype, perhaps. Once you know how to picture Serehfa (by which I mean you’ve realized that you can’t picture Serehfa, you can only picture pieces of it), you can begin to picture how you exist in, and relate to, our contemporary human society. You're thinking that sounds ambitious, yes? A tenuous connection, maybe? Well, let’s see if I can make this idea stick ...
The society in Feersum Endjin is too massive, complex, and even contradictory to pull together in a big picture that makes much sense. That society encompasses the living and the dead, the first-lifers and the reincarnated, the physical and the virtual, the human-basic and the chimeric. Those diverse brush strokes are weaved together in a multifaceted symphony of color that defies our ability to imagine. What Banks paints for us through the stories of Bascule and other individuals are the detailed sections--like the rooms in Serehfa--that our minds can conceive of. But focusing on the detailed sections prevents us from seeing the whole picture. So we try to step back. Unfortunately, stepping back causes us to lose sight of the comprehendable details, leaving a wash of generalities, and, worse, the stepping back is in vain because we never can step back far enough to take in the whole construction. Sounds like our archetype, doesn't it? Yes, you answer with a bored sigh. It's so faaaascinating, you say sarcastically as you snicker to one another. I know, I know, you’re attention span is getting shorter as this review gets longer. Don’t worry, there’s just one more step, I promise ...
I maintain that our contemporary human society is not so different from the Serehfa archetype, nor from the fictional future society to which we've already applied the archetype. We may not have chimerics walking the sidewalks, or sentient AI's floating around our internets, or reincarnated people in our living rooms, but our world is no less strange or diverse in its own way; no less intricate or impossibly complex. We each can see and understand the detailed sections painted by our own stories and those around us, but when we step back, when we lose the context of the individual, we are prone to make sweeping generalities.
Fine, you say between yawns, so what? What has this all got to do with Bascule and his learning disability? Okay, so there's one more step. I'm sorry about that, but here's where I try to bring it all together: The way Bascule writes is the way we relate to this world, to our "Serehfa." Our world is full of rules, oh so many rules, for fitting in. And like the rules of the English written language, some make sense and some don’t. Some are consistent while others are contradictory. Some rules have a logical basis while others are wholly arbitrary. So how do we survive in this vast, complex monstrosity of a world where we’ll never understand the whole picture but we can see little sections in detail and which imposes upon us multifarious rules that make no sense? We speak to it phonetically, willing people to understand us and praying people will forgive us for our lapses, trying like mad to concentrate on the phonetic mutterings emanating from our friends and loved ones so we can understand them. And all the while we’re hoping like hell that the insignificant section we paint leaves some meaning behind when we’re gone.
Thayr r meny protaguniss in Feersum Endjin but Bascule iz reely the dryvin chayractr. Hez the regyoolar gi we can idennify wif. Hez the unliklee hero frust in2 sercumstansis beyond hiz understandin or cuntrol and givin the oportoonity 2 mayk brav deesishins wif the fayt uv hyoomanity in the balans. Hiz brayvry leedz him 2 perform acts uv grayt consikwens, even if he cant c thos consikwensis frum hiz limitd perzpektiv. Bascule playz an eesentil rol in helping the gud giz win the day and he duznt even no it (until the end, enwayz). Hez juss dooin whot seemz ryt to him.
Enwayz, az u ½ now gesd, Bascule ryts in an uncunvenshinol fashin. Ubowt a ¼ uv the book, maybee a litl mor, is riten in the 1st persun by Bascule, hoo hass a lerning disubiluty. He can tok normuly but can onlee ryt foneticly. An the ofor, Ean Bankz, poolz this of brilyantly.
As I sit here attempting to write like Bascule I can tell you it isn’t as easy at it might sound. It takes some amount of concentration. And it takes some concentration to read Bascule’s account of events. It’s not for the lazy reader. Banks’ ability to write awkwardly and unfamiliarly yet make it sound like a substantive, caring, and relatable person is pretty damn amazing. But like many of Banks’ novels there's more beneath the surface. Underlying Bascule’s phonetic writing is a point of much more substance, a commentary on the struggle we humans endure to communicate with one another and with the world. It’ll take me several steps to get there, so try to hang with me ...
The world of Feersum Endjin contains too many details to paint them all, and the big picture itself is difficult to paint because you can’t stand back far enough to take it all in. Take, for example, the absurdly oversize castle called Serehfa in which much of the Earth’s population lives. We’re talking a castle built to scale for people who stand hundreds of meters tall. A castle with walls standing several kilometers high, the tops obscured by haze and the shear cliff-faces running to the horizon on your right and left. A central tower that tickles the underbelly of outer space. A structure set atop a three-kilometer tall mesa in one room that, seen from afar, looks like a chandelier lowered from the ceiling for spring cleaning. Seen up close, the chandelier is a city of elaborate, soaring, glass-paneled skyscrapers. A structure is set kilometers high in the corner of one room that, seen from afar, looks like a baroque decorative gargoyle. Seen up close the gargoyle is a residential complex where people enjoy the view from balconies in the eyes. The larger rooms have their own weather systems. One room contains a volcano. Others contain lakes and rivers and hills and valleys. The rooms in the higher levels—each level standing a couple kilometers tall—are perpetually cold, and one of them holds a year-round ski-resort. In what would be a castle’s dungeon, the somber port city of Oubliette (you heard that right) sits beside a black ocean that hasn’t seen sunlight in millennia. Now, stay with me here ...
You can visualize parts of the castle Serehfa. Your imagination has painted pictures—perhaps even detailed pictures—of the corner of one room and the centerpiece in another, of one small piece of the horizon-spanning castle walls. Your mind is busily filling in random details plucked from your memory to create a room with a volcano, and a room with lakes and rivers, hills and valleys. You know what a ski resort looks like so your mind simply places it inside a vast interior space. But visualizing the whole castle? No. Definitely not. Just a few scattered pieces that contain sufficiently familiar elements for your mind to grab on to, like a good handhold on a cliff face. But pull back and urge your imagination to paint the entire monstrosity ... and you’re hand will miss a handhold, your foot slip from a niche, and you go tumbling right on down. Still with me? Even through the mixed metaphors? Good. Let’s take the next step ...
What if the castle Serehfa was not just a physical setting for our young hero Bascule’s adventures? It’s a hell of a setting, to be sure, another example of Banks’ penchant for conceiving breathtaking, larger-than-life locales for his characters to roam. But what if Serehfa was, let’s say, a lens to focus the reader's thoughts and a pattern for those thoughts to follow ... an archetype, perhaps. Once you know how to picture Serehfa (by which I mean you’ve realized that you can’t picture Serehfa, you can only picture pieces of it), you can begin to picture how you exist in, and relate to, our contemporary human society. You're thinking that sounds ambitious, yes? A tenuous connection, maybe? Well, let’s see if I can make this idea stick ...
The society in Feersum Endjin is too massive, complex, and even contradictory to pull together in a big picture that makes much sense. That society encompasses the living and the dead, the first-lifers and the reincarnated, the physical and the virtual, the human-basic and the chimeric. Those diverse brush strokes are weaved together in a multifaceted symphony of color that defies our ability to imagine. What Banks paints for us through the stories of Bascule and other individuals are the detailed sections--like the rooms in Serehfa--that our minds can conceive of. But focusing on the detailed sections prevents us from seeing the whole picture. So we try to step back. Unfortunately, stepping back causes us to lose sight of the comprehendable details, leaving a wash of generalities, and, worse, the stepping back is in vain because we never can step back far enough to take in the whole construction. Sounds like our archetype, doesn't it? Yes, you answer with a bored sigh. It's so faaaascinating, you say sarcastically as you snicker to one another. I know, I know, you’re attention span is getting shorter as this review gets longer. Don’t worry, there’s just one more step, I promise ...
I maintain that our contemporary human society is not so different from the Serehfa archetype, nor from the fictional future society to which we've already applied the archetype. We may not have chimerics walking the sidewalks, or sentient AI's floating around our internets, or reincarnated people in our living rooms, but our world is no less strange or diverse in its own way; no less intricate or impossibly complex. We each can see and understand the detailed sections painted by our own stories and those around us, but when we step back, when we lose the context of the individual, we are prone to make sweeping generalities.
Fine, you say between yawns, so what? What has this all got to do with Bascule and his learning disability? Okay, so there's one more step. I'm sorry about that, but here's where I try to bring it all together: The way Bascule writes is the way we relate to this world, to our "Serehfa." Our world is full of rules, oh so many rules, for fitting in. And like the rules of the English written language, some make sense and some don’t. Some are consistent while others are contradictory. Some rules have a logical basis while others are wholly arbitrary. So how do we survive in this vast, complex monstrosity of a world where we’ll never understand the whole picture but we can see little sections in detail and which imposes upon us multifarious rules that make no sense? We speak to it phonetically, willing people to understand us and praying people will forgive us for our lapses, trying like mad to concentrate on the phonetic mutterings emanating from our friends and loved ones so we can understand them. And all the while we’re hoping like hell that the insignificant section we paint leaves some meaning behind when we’re gone.
February 9, 2017
This is a serious work of the imagination. It doesn't really fit in the Culture novels, but it's definitely some Hard-SF with a beautiful vision of a far old Earth filled with so many Big Ideas. We've got everything from allotted resurrections, ghosts solving their own murders, enormous and layered virtual realities, virus-ridden fantasy realms, and a Chaos filled with AIs. If that isn't enough, the Earth is going through some major changes. You know... like destruction. Even more physical Big Ideas keep flowing in and I reveled in it all. :)
But don't just think this is just a novel of ideas. The characters and the individual stories were all fascinating and funny and full of great reveals and twists. More than enough for three normal novels, even. :)
I happily skipped one major complaint of this novel by listening to the audiobook version with Peter Kenny. He's awesome. That's great all by itself. But the best part is breezing right past the creative spellings of words. You know. Like the title of this book. Weird, right? But it's just Fearsome Engine. :) I'm sure this would be fine for people who read Shakespeare or any number of novels including Mark Twain's, but it is dense and some people might get turned off.
Which would be a real shame because this novel is a real shining star of creativity. It reads like a fantasy adventure and mystery while having all the great trappings of a heavy SF dive. :)
I totally recommend this SF for anyone who wants to stretch their wings and wonder at the beauty of creation. :) No Culture Experience Required. :)
But don't just think this is just a novel of ideas. The characters and the individual stories were all fascinating and funny and full of great reveals and twists. More than enough for three normal novels, even. :)
I happily skipped one major complaint of this novel by listening to the audiobook version with Peter Kenny. He's awesome. That's great all by itself. But the best part is breezing right past the creative spellings of words. You know. Like the title of this book. Weird, right? But it's just Fearsome Engine. :) I'm sure this would be fine for people who read Shakespeare or any number of novels including Mark Twain's, but it is dense and some people might get turned off.
Which would be a real shame because this novel is a real shining star of creativity. It reads like a fantasy adventure and mystery while having all the great trappings of a heavy SF dive. :)
I totally recommend this SF for anyone who wants to stretch their wings and wonder at the beauty of creation. :) No Culture Experience Required. :)
February 9, 2017
Scottish writer Iain M. Banks with his book "Feersum Endjinn" has given us the second science fiction novel not based upon or set within the Culture universe, the first being Against a Dark Background.
"Feersum Endjinn" is additionally Iain M Banks's sixth work of science fiction.
Banks deals in ideas. The most striking feature of this book is lack of emotional subtlety and the story is told in four threads, following four main characters.
Mr. Banks passed away on June 6 2013 at the age of 59. Aware of his imminent demise on 3 April he announced on his website that he had inoperable gall bladder cancer, giving him, at most, a year to live. His first published novel, "The Wasp Factory", appeared in 1984 when he was thirty years old. His first science fiction novel, "Consider Phlebas", was published in 1987, in it he created "The Culture", a galaxy-hopping society run by powerful but benevolent machines. For the rest of his career literary novels would alternate with works of science fiction, the latter appearing under the name "Iain M Banks" (the "M" standing for Menzies).
I enjoy all of Mr. Banks's work both fiction and Science Fiction.
Mr. Banks was also an expert on Scottish whisky.
"Feersum Endjinn" is additionally Iain M Banks's sixth work of science fiction.
Banks deals in ideas. The most striking feature of this book is lack of emotional subtlety and the story is told in four threads, following four main characters.
Mr. Banks passed away on June 6 2013 at the age of 59. Aware of his imminent demise on 3 April he announced on his website that he had inoperable gall bladder cancer, giving him, at most, a year to live. His first published novel, "The Wasp Factory", appeared in 1984 when he was thirty years old. His first science fiction novel, "Consider Phlebas", was published in 1987, in it he created "The Culture", a galaxy-hopping society run by powerful but benevolent machines. For the rest of his career literary novels would alternate with works of science fiction, the latter appearing under the name "Iain M Banks" (the "M" standing for Menzies).
I enjoy all of Mr. Banks's work both fiction and Science Fiction.
Mr. Banks was also an expert on Scottish whisky.
March 21, 2010
By looking at my star rating you might think I am not a fan of Iain M. Banks non-Culture novel Feersum Endjin. That is not the truth, though.
I am a fan. A big fan, actually, but I try to stick to what the stars claim they are for, and since they range from "didn't like it" to "it was amazing" and are clearly subjective ranks rather than qualitative ranks, the book only received an I "liked it" rating from me.
If I was rating its quality, however, Feersum Endjin is worthy of the full compliment of stars.
Feersum Endjin is not an entertainment. But it is an impressive literary feat. Banks makes us work for every page, every step of the story, and he rewards us with passages of exceptional, nearly poetic, prose that reveal his immense imagination and can set one's mind spinning into an all too feasible future Earth of massive architecture, virtual immortality, and Sun-induced, ice age Encroachment.
Banks' finest and most challenging achievement in Feersum Endjin comes whenever he shifts his narrative to Bascule, the dyslexic Teller who writes his story phonetically because he can't write it any other way. His accent, which feels a little North London and a little Glasgow, makes the phonetic spelling just a touch more challenging for the reader (particularly if the reader is from North America), but if one takes one's time, and even reads it aloud, the pay off is worth the work it takes to read.
Bascule may actually be Banks' most likable sci-fi character, and his search for the talking ant, Ergates, is satisfying in its future picaresqueness.
You might not "enjoy" Feersum Endjin in any traditional sense, but you will be glad you read it when you're through.
At least I am.
I am a fan. A big fan, actually, but I try to stick to what the stars claim they are for, and since they range from "didn't like it" to "it was amazing" and are clearly subjective ranks rather than qualitative ranks, the book only received an I "liked it" rating from me.
If I was rating its quality, however, Feersum Endjin is worthy of the full compliment of stars.
Feersum Endjin is not an entertainment. But it is an impressive literary feat. Banks makes us work for every page, every step of the story, and he rewards us with passages of exceptional, nearly poetic, prose that reveal his immense imagination and can set one's mind spinning into an all too feasible future Earth of massive architecture, virtual immortality, and Sun-induced, ice age Encroachment.
Banks' finest and most challenging achievement in Feersum Endjin comes whenever he shifts his narrative to Bascule, the dyslexic Teller who writes his story phonetically because he can't write it any other way. His accent, which feels a little North London and a little Glasgow, makes the phonetic spelling just a touch more challenging for the reader (particularly if the reader is from North America), but if one takes one's time, and even reads it aloud, the pay off is worth the work it takes to read.
Bascule may actually be Banks' most likable sci-fi character, and his search for the talking ant, Ergates, is satisfying in its future picaresqueness.
You might not "enjoy" Feersum Endjin in any traditional sense, but you will be glad you read it when you're through.
At least I am.
November 19, 2020
This was incredible and also slightly perplexing. I'll definitely want to re-read at some point.
As a reader you're immediately immersed in a set of odd characters and a world with some familiar sci-fi and fantasy elements, which is also wholly unfamiliar and bizarre. You'll need patience to get comfortable with your confusion and thirst for answers as Banks' deftly and ever so gingerly lifts the veils on the plot, which being one of political intrigue against the backdrop of an impending planetary disaster isn't all that complex, and the wider world, which most certainly is. At the heart of this complexity is the blurring of boundaries between the real and the virtual. The vast virtual "Crypt" proves to be a wild west of countless independent entities, including humans and human constructs, many of which have or are in the process of breaking down and melding in unforeseen and astonishing ways.
Banks' has done something beautiful and unexpected here, taking some familiar sci-fi, cyberpunk and fantasy themes and rolling them all up into something new and wonderful, and with ample does of humor to boot. By the end I think I was able to pretty much make sense of it all, and the payoff was worth it. Never did I feel that he was intentionally trying to confound or frustrate, yet it certainly takes some effort to keep afloat.
As a reader you're immediately immersed in a set of odd characters and a world with some familiar sci-fi and fantasy elements, which is also wholly unfamiliar and bizarre. You'll need patience to get comfortable with your confusion and thirst for answers as Banks' deftly and ever so gingerly lifts the veils on the plot, which being one of political intrigue against the backdrop of an impending planetary disaster isn't all that complex, and the wider world, which most certainly is. At the heart of this complexity is the blurring of boundaries between the real and the virtual. The vast virtual "Crypt" proves to be a wild west of countless independent entities, including humans and human constructs, many of which have or are in the process of breaking down and melding in unforeseen and astonishing ways.
Banks' has done something beautiful and unexpected here, taking some familiar sci-fi, cyberpunk and fantasy themes and rolling them all up into something new and wonderful, and with ample does of humor to boot. By the end I think I was able to pretty much make sense of it all, and the payoff was worth it. Never did I feel that he was intentionally trying to confound or frustrate, yet it certainly takes some effort to keep afloat.
December 28, 2020
What an oddball s-f novel. My first I. M. Banks. Instead of venturing down any paths eventually leading to me reading his other standalone novels, I will probably just revert to my original plan and start the Culture series.
But about this one. It was post-Cyberpunk, with touches of high-ish fantasy. Plentiful, interesting concepts mashed together. Writing was by turns quirky, beautiful, and utterly convoluted. Wasn't interested in some plot-lines, several of which did not appear to get resolved. It was entertaining, but I expected a deeper plunge into the central conceits, which were a breeding ground for Banks' charming style and shimmering ideas. Instead it goes all over the place at once. Certainly enjoyable, if you like a surprising story. I feel there are more interesting books about virtual reality, and far-future, post-technical settings. I believe Banks tried to pull off too many tricks, instead of doing one thing really well. It's more of a puzzle than a plot, but gobs of gorgeous imagery throughout.
But about this one. It was post-Cyberpunk, with touches of high-ish fantasy. Plentiful, interesting concepts mashed together. Writing was by turns quirky, beautiful, and utterly convoluted. Wasn't interested in some plot-lines, several of which did not appear to get resolved. It was entertaining, but I expected a deeper plunge into the central conceits, which were a breeding ground for Banks' charming style and shimmering ideas. Instead it goes all over the place at once. Certainly enjoyable, if you like a surprising story. I feel there are more interesting books about virtual reality, and far-future, post-technical settings. I believe Banks tried to pull off too many tricks, instead of doing one thing really well. It's more of a puzzle than a plot, but gobs of gorgeous imagery throughout.
dnf-not-my-cup-of-coffee
September 3, 2021DNF - Phonetical writing is too much of a chore for me
January 1, 2014
Iain M. Banks is the only sf author I've actively pursued in years. His Culture novels have been particularly interesting, their sociological framework being unusually intelligent for the genre.
This is not a Culture novel per se, though, god knows, it may fit in somewhere as pre-C in the broad canvas of Banks' imagination. What it is is a future Earth story, date unstated, but certainly not near-future. The ostensible plot-driver is an interstellar cloud which, increasingly, is occluding solar radiation, threatening all life on the planet. As usual, the story is approached from the perspectives of several, disparate characters and much is left mysterious until the final chapter.
Unfortunately, much, too much, remains mysterious even after the final page is read. Assuming this is a standalone novel, it lacks the advantage of the Culture ones in that they, among themselves, pretty much explain, or at least promise to explain, everything. Here one wonders about how this advanced society lacks space faring capacities when it is clear that much of the population, "the Diaspora", flew off long ago. In other respects they're quite technologically advanced, yet in still other respects they're politically and sociologically atavistic. Common people exist in this book only as faceless masses ruled by--get this!--a king and council. The impression after finishing the thing is that it itself wasn't finished.
Most irritating is that one of the major protagonists is only represented phonetically (e.g. the book's title)--a disability mentioned but once explicitly, a device which serves no purpose so far as I could see except to slow down the reading.
If I'd never read anything by Banks except this, I'd never read him again. Fortunately, I know better and intend to try some of his straight fiction next.
This is not a Culture novel per se, though, god knows, it may fit in somewhere as pre-C in the broad canvas of Banks' imagination. What it is is a future Earth story, date unstated, but certainly not near-future. The ostensible plot-driver is an interstellar cloud which, increasingly, is occluding solar radiation, threatening all life on the planet. As usual, the story is approached from the perspectives of several, disparate characters and much is left mysterious until the final chapter.
Unfortunately, much, too much, remains mysterious even after the final page is read. Assuming this is a standalone novel, it lacks the advantage of the Culture ones in that they, among themselves, pretty much explain, or at least promise to explain, everything. Here one wonders about how this advanced society lacks space faring capacities when it is clear that much of the population, "the Diaspora", flew off long ago. In other respects they're quite technologically advanced, yet in still other respects they're politically and sociologically atavistic. Common people exist in this book only as faceless masses ruled by--get this!--a king and council. The impression after finishing the thing is that it itself wasn't finished.
Most irritating is that one of the major protagonists is only represented phonetically (e.g. the book's title)--a disability mentioned but once explicitly, a device which serves no purpose so far as I could see except to slow down the reading.
If I'd never read anything by Banks except this, I'd never read him again. Fortunately, I know better and intend to try some of his straight fiction next.
May 11, 2016
First of all, I'm a big Iain Banks fan. Keep that in mind when I tell you that this book is unreadable.
The number one problem is that one of the main characters has some sort of disability and can only write phonetically. So you have to wade through pages and pages of garbage like this:
JESUS CHRIST IAIN WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?
I got through about 20% of this book and the story was interesting, but ultimately I could not deal with that crap.
The number one problem is that one of the main characters has some sort of disability and can only write phonetically. So you have to wade through pages and pages of garbage like this:
But am Bascule thi Rascule, thass whot they call me! Am yung & am onli on my furst life I tells her, laffin; Bascule thi Teller nuffink, that's me; no I or II or VII or any ov that nonsins 4 yoors truly; am good az immortil 4 all intense & purpusses & if u cant act a bit daff when u never dyed not even 1nce yet, when can u?
JESUS CHRIST IAIN WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?
I got through about 20% of this book and the story was interesting, but ultimately I could not deal with that crap.
August 29, 2013
It grabbed me from the start. Part of this was the simple spectacle of it all, of the brobdingnagian "castle" where most of the story is set, in its kilometers-long, kilometers-tall chambers, of a destructive civil war between royalists and those aligned with the clan of Engineers, of the grotesque "chimeric" animals of sentience, and of the multiple layers of reality implemented in the vast dataspace of the cryptosphere where the data chaos lurks. And then there is the overwhelming concern of the Encroachment endangering the planet.
The other side of it is Banks's meticulous management of information, where the reader has to piece together what the Encroachment really is (it is not detailed until well into the book), and who Count Sessine's enemies are, and why the war is happening, and most importantly how everyone is going to fix this mess. This book respects its readers and in turn expects much of them. None of the background information is handed over in a dump of exposition, and even the presence of Bascule, whose viewpoint is a fourth of the text, means that the reader must downshift his/her reading into low gear in order to deal with his phonetic spelling and how he repeats the accents or speech patterns of those he encounters. Even understanding what the "castle" really is takes time for the pieces to come together.
It's rewarding. But you have to work for it.
I found myself continually comparing the story to Clarke's The City and the Stars, possibly with a dram or two of Gormenghast and/or The Night Land. Both consider the fate of a redoubt on an unimaginably future Earth, where a decadent, remnant society resides after the ambitious bulk of humanity ascends to the stars. An unexpected human is incarnated automatically for the purposes of the data system itself.
The other side of it is Banks's meticulous management of information, where the reader has to piece together what the Encroachment really is (it is not detailed until well into the book), and who Count Sessine's enemies are, and why the war is happening, and most importantly how everyone is going to fix this mess. This book respects its readers and in turn expects much of them. None of the background information is handed over in a dump of exposition, and even the presence of Bascule, whose viewpoint is a fourth of the text, means that the reader must downshift his/her reading into low gear in order to deal with his phonetic spelling and how he repeats the accents or speech patterns of those he encounters. Even understanding what the "castle" really is takes time for the pieces to come together.
It's rewarding. But you have to work for it.
I found myself continually comparing the story to Clarke's The City and the Stars, possibly with a dram or two of Gormenghast and/or The Night Land. Both consider the fate of a redoubt on an unimaginably future Earth, where a decadent, remnant society resides after the ambitious bulk of humanity ascends to the stars. An unexpected human is incarnated automatically for the purposes of the data system itself.
July 7, 2010
Set on an almost unrecognizable far future Earth, this book is Iain. M. Banks' second non-Culture SF endevour. Earth is past it's golden hour, and technology has fallen into the realm of mysticism and ritual. The story follows four different people living in the remains of what can only be described as an disproportionately scaled super-city as they are reluctantly dragged into a plot involving a threat against the entire Earth. They face a conspiracy of powerful individuals with their own agenda, not necessarily interested in averting the looming threat.
What's really special is that one of the protagionist's (Bascule, a young Teller (hacker, more or less)) viewpoints is written almost phonetically in first person perspective, which could potentially annoy some readers, but adds another layer of flavor to the already very thick atmosphere of the book. Here's an example of how it reads:
"Well I no that, thilly, tho u r a very feerth old hok, & gettin less blind ol thi time. I woth jutht kiddin. O luke anuthi thee-gull. Or ith it? Lookth moar like a albino cro, akchooly. Well, i cant thtand awound hea ol day chattin with u; i 1/2 2 fly, Dartlin sez, & hops down off thi perch. Ith ther anythin i can get u, Mr Bathcule?"
Believe it or not, this makes sense when you have actually read the book. In any case, or perhaps because of it, I enjoyed it. In fact this is probably, in my opinion, Banks's best non-Culture novel.
What's really special is that one of the protagionist's (Bascule, a young Teller (hacker, more or less)) viewpoints is written almost phonetically in first person perspective, which could potentially annoy some readers, but adds another layer of flavor to the already very thick atmosphere of the book. Here's an example of how it reads:
"Well I no that, thilly, tho u r a very feerth old hok, & gettin less blind ol thi time. I woth jutht kiddin. O luke anuthi thee-gull. Or ith it? Lookth moar like a albino cro, akchooly. Well, i cant thtand awound hea ol day chattin with u; i 1/2 2 fly, Dartlin sez, & hops down off thi perch. Ith ther anythin i can get u, Mr Bathcule?"
Believe it or not, this makes sense when you have actually read the book. In any case, or perhaps because of it, I enjoyed it. In fact this is probably, in my opinion, Banks's best non-Culture novel.
May 28, 2013
I -- don't know what to think. This one will have to sit and be turned over in the mental thought-bank for a while: the difficulties of following the narrative through POV changes and the phonetically written sections made it fragment in my mind, despite me reading it at my usual tremendous pace. I think I liked it a lot: I certainly liked the concept of the world, anyway, though on reflection I don't give much a monkey's about most of the characters.
If phonetic spelling is going to annoy you, and/or be really difficult for you, don't bother with this one. It doesn't feel as fully realised, to me, as Banks' other books (that I've read, anyway) do. The central ideas are interesting, and the choice of narrative structure is experimental, but it didn't work as well as I'd hoped for me. But if you trust Banks, then try it.
If phonetic spelling is going to annoy you, and/or be really difficult for you, don't bother with this one. It doesn't feel as fully realised, to me, as Banks' other books (that I've read, anyway) do. The central ideas are interesting, and the choice of narrative structure is experimental, but it didn't work as well as I'd hoped for me. But if you trust Banks, then try it.
April 22, 2016
Feersum Endjinn: An eclectic far-future science fantasy mashup
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
Sometimes a book has so many incredible elements that it defies easy summary. Compound that with the fact that it shares themes with some of your favorite genre classics, and that it is written by the incredibly-talented Iain M. Banks, and you have the recipe for a very unique reading experience. As I read the story, I was forcibly reminded of some classic books in the genre, particularly Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars, Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Anathem.
The most distinctive aspect of Feersum Endjinn (1994) is definitely the chapters narrated in phonetic spelling by Bascule the Teller, an amiable young man who is seeking a tiny talking ant named Ergates that was snatched away by a strange bird. His section begins like this:
Woak up. Got dresd. Had brekfast. Spoke wif Ergates thi ant who sed itz juss been wurk wurk wurk 4 u lately master Bascule, Y dont u ½ a holiday? & I agreed & that woz how we decided we otter go 2 c Mr Zoliparia in thi I-ball ov thi gargoyle Rosbrith.
Readers who’ve read Russell Hoban’s classic post-apocalyptic tale Riddley Walker will find this literary technique familiar, and it will either draw you in over time or turn you off completely. He seems to be speaking in a Scottish (or North London?) accent, and it’s very distinctive and charming if you can understand it.
Now I did a sneaky thing — I love listening to Iain M. Banks’ books on audio, but strangely some of his lesser-known titles (outside the best-known CULTURE novels like Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, etc) are not available on US Audible, but are on UK Audible. Since my US Amazon account is linked to my Japanese Amazon account, I have access to UK Audible titles. It’s convoluted but so worth it, because I was able to get Feersum Endjinn, Excession, and The Algebraist that way.
Peter Kenny is the incredibly talented narrator of most of Iain M. Banks’ novels, and he has a mastery of a range of characters and British and Scottish accents, and perfectly captures Banks’ ironic and intelligent sense of humor. They complement each other so well, it’s a shame some of these titles are not available on US Audible. Kenny does such a brilliant job with Bascule, making him have a working-class humility and amiability, that Bascule has become one of my favorite Banks’ characters. And you get the added bonus of not having to read the phonetic spellings, if you don’t consider that cheating.
Feersum Endjinn is told from four alternating perspectives, and much of the pleasure of this book is slowly piecing together who the narrators are, what situations they face, a slow reveal of the very strange and complex world that surrounds them, and finally the ways in which they are connected, which all gets elegantly tied together at the end. One pet peeve of mine is that even the best written books sometimes have disappointing endings, so I was relieved to see the story resolved to my satisfaction. This is even more important for stand-alone novels.
So, being careful to avoid any spoilers, here are the main cast of characters:
Count Alandre Sessine VII, a military commander who has been killed numerous times, most recently by assassination. He awakes in the Cryptosphere, having lost his eighth and final real-world life, and now has eight virtual lives (which rapidly dwindle) to discover who has been plotting against him and why.
Hortis Gadfium III, Chief Scientist to the the King and Consistory. When she is contacted mysteriously with warnings that the Encroachment must be dealt with, her investigations bring her in conflict with the ruling powers and drags her into a struggle between the King and rival factions.
Asura is a mysterious woman reborn into the Fastness, who has amnesia but knows she needs to deliver a message, without knowing the content or recipient. Her existence becomes a threat to the ruling powers, forcing her to go on the run as she makes her way further into the inner regions of the Fastness.
Bastule the Teller is the dyslexic narrator whose main job is to dive into the Cryptosphere and retrieve lost information, often by interrogating stored personalities that have been dormant for millennia. He is also on a mission to find his tiny ant friend Ergates, and also becomes entangled with various plots as he delves deeper into the virus-infected chaos regions of the Crypt.
There is one more key character that looms throughout the story – the unimaginably vast Fastness itself, known as Serehfa. It is a massive castle-like structure that is built to a scale far beyond that of humans, and it is inextricably linked to the Cryptosphere itself. Here is a brief image:
At one end of the vast C bitten from the castle a single great bastion-tower stood, almost intact, five kilometres high, and casting a kilometre-wide shadow across the rumpled ground in front of the convoy. The walls had tumbled down around the tower, vanishing completely on one side and leaving only a ridge of fractured material barely five hundred metres high on the other. The plant-mass babilia, unique to the fastness and ubiquitous within it, coated all but the smoothest of vertical surfaces with tumescent hanging forests of lime-green, royal blue and pale, rusty orange; only the heights of scarred wall closest to the more actively venting fissures and fumaroles remained untouched by the tenacious vegetation.
The origins and workings of the Fastness have been lost in antiquity, ever since the Diaspora in which the builders left the world for unknown destinations, leaving a much more primitive populace to live within its mega-architectural confines. The Fastness and the Diaspora are strongly reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, two of my all-time favorite books, while the Cryptosphere feels much like the Metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and Asura’s story slightly reminded me of Princess Nell’s coming-of-age adventures with the Primer in Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age. Finally, the primitive guild-like Clan Engineers and baroque society left behind after the Diaspora reminded me of the monastic societies in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, with their limited understanding of a much more advanced past, but who strive to carefully preserve that knowledge nonetheless.
The novel rotates its perspective between the four narrative threads, often not providing all the necessary details or leaving readers dangling at the ends of chapters, so the book does require careful attention, especially Bascule’s parts. It also spends much time flitting in and out of the virtual Crytosphere, which might have given it a cyberpunk flavor, but since the imagery and events in the Crypt often resemble a fantasy quest, the book feels much more like a far-future science fantasy along the lines of Gene Wolfe’s THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN or Jack Vance’s DYING EARTH novels.
Revealing any further plot details would simply ruin your enjoyment of this baroque and playful book. Although Banks is primarily known for his space opera CULTURE books like The Player of Games, Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, as well as non-SF novels like The Wasp Factory and Walking on Glass, I’ve found that every book of his I’ve read has been worthwhile, and Feersum Endjinn in particular was a treat.
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
Sometimes a book has so many incredible elements that it defies easy summary. Compound that with the fact that it shares themes with some of your favorite genre classics, and that it is written by the incredibly-talented Iain M. Banks, and you have the recipe for a very unique reading experience. As I read the story, I was forcibly reminded of some classic books in the genre, particularly Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars, Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Anathem.
The most distinctive aspect of Feersum Endjinn (1994) is definitely the chapters narrated in phonetic spelling by Bascule the Teller, an amiable young man who is seeking a tiny talking ant named Ergates that was snatched away by a strange bird. His section begins like this:
Woak up. Got dresd. Had brekfast. Spoke wif Ergates thi ant who sed itz juss been wurk wurk wurk 4 u lately master Bascule, Y dont u ½ a holiday? & I agreed & that woz how we decided we otter go 2 c Mr Zoliparia in thi I-ball ov thi gargoyle Rosbrith.
Readers who’ve read Russell Hoban’s classic post-apocalyptic tale Riddley Walker will find this literary technique familiar, and it will either draw you in over time or turn you off completely. He seems to be speaking in a Scottish (or North London?) accent, and it’s very distinctive and charming if you can understand it.
Now I did a sneaky thing — I love listening to Iain M. Banks’ books on audio, but strangely some of his lesser-known titles (outside the best-known CULTURE novels like Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, etc) are not available on US Audible, but are on UK Audible. Since my US Amazon account is linked to my Japanese Amazon account, I have access to UK Audible titles. It’s convoluted but so worth it, because I was able to get Feersum Endjinn, Excession, and The Algebraist that way.
Peter Kenny is the incredibly talented narrator of most of Iain M. Banks’ novels, and he has a mastery of a range of characters and British and Scottish accents, and perfectly captures Banks’ ironic and intelligent sense of humor. They complement each other so well, it’s a shame some of these titles are not available on US Audible. Kenny does such a brilliant job with Bascule, making him have a working-class humility and amiability, that Bascule has become one of my favorite Banks’ characters. And you get the added bonus of not having to read the phonetic spellings, if you don’t consider that cheating.
Feersum Endjinn is told from four alternating perspectives, and much of the pleasure of this book is slowly piecing together who the narrators are, what situations they face, a slow reveal of the very strange and complex world that surrounds them, and finally the ways in which they are connected, which all gets elegantly tied together at the end. One pet peeve of mine is that even the best written books sometimes have disappointing endings, so I was relieved to see the story resolved to my satisfaction. This is even more important for stand-alone novels.
So, being careful to avoid any spoilers, here are the main cast of characters:
Count Alandre Sessine VII, a military commander who has been killed numerous times, most recently by assassination. He awakes in the Cryptosphere, having lost his eighth and final real-world life, and now has eight virtual lives (which rapidly dwindle) to discover who has been plotting against him and why.
Hortis Gadfium III, Chief Scientist to the the King and Consistory. When she is contacted mysteriously with warnings that the Encroachment must be dealt with, her investigations bring her in conflict with the ruling powers and drags her into a struggle between the King and rival factions.
Asura is a mysterious woman reborn into the Fastness, who has amnesia but knows she needs to deliver a message, without knowing the content or recipient. Her existence becomes a threat to the ruling powers, forcing her to go on the run as she makes her way further into the inner regions of the Fastness.
Bastule the Teller is the dyslexic narrator whose main job is to dive into the Cryptosphere and retrieve lost information, often by interrogating stored personalities that have been dormant for millennia. He is also on a mission to find his tiny ant friend Ergates, and also becomes entangled with various plots as he delves deeper into the virus-infected chaos regions of the Crypt.
There is one more key character that looms throughout the story – the unimaginably vast Fastness itself, known as Serehfa. It is a massive castle-like structure that is built to a scale far beyond that of humans, and it is inextricably linked to the Cryptosphere itself. Here is a brief image:
At one end of the vast C bitten from the castle a single great bastion-tower stood, almost intact, five kilometres high, and casting a kilometre-wide shadow across the rumpled ground in front of the convoy. The walls had tumbled down around the tower, vanishing completely on one side and leaving only a ridge of fractured material barely five hundred metres high on the other. The plant-mass babilia, unique to the fastness and ubiquitous within it, coated all but the smoothest of vertical surfaces with tumescent hanging forests of lime-green, royal blue and pale, rusty orange; only the heights of scarred wall closest to the more actively venting fissures and fumaroles remained untouched by the tenacious vegetation.
The origins and workings of the Fastness have been lost in antiquity, ever since the Diaspora in which the builders left the world for unknown destinations, leaving a much more primitive populace to live within its mega-architectural confines. The Fastness and the Diaspora are strongly reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, two of my all-time favorite books, while the Cryptosphere feels much like the Metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and Asura’s story slightly reminded me of Princess Nell’s coming-of-age adventures with the Primer in Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age. Finally, the primitive guild-like Clan Engineers and baroque society left behind after the Diaspora reminded me of the monastic societies in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, with their limited understanding of a much more advanced past, but who strive to carefully preserve that knowledge nonetheless.
The novel rotates its perspective between the four narrative threads, often not providing all the necessary details or leaving readers dangling at the ends of chapters, so the book does require careful attention, especially Bascule’s parts. It also spends much time flitting in and out of the virtual Crytosphere, which might have given it a cyberpunk flavor, but since the imagery and events in the Crypt often resemble a fantasy quest, the book feels much more like a far-future science fantasy along the lines of Gene Wolfe’s THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN or Jack Vance’s DYING EARTH novels.
Revealing any further plot details would simply ruin your enjoyment of this baroque and playful book. Although Banks is primarily known for his space opera CULTURE books like The Player of Games, Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, as well as non-SF novels like The Wasp Factory and Walking on Glass, I’ve found that every book of his I’ve read has been worthwhile, and Feersum Endjinn in particular was a treat.
May 12, 2024
I wanted to like this one more, but the autistic chapters just slowed my reading down and felt like too much effort for not enough payoff. I felt the story was moderately interesting and always like Bank's writing, but this one just didn't have the same gravitas or humor of his Culture novels and I came away from it underwhelmed. Hopefully, Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist are better!
Fino Reviews Iain M Banks Sci-Fi and Culture series
Culture Series
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Non-Culture Sci-Fi
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Fino Reviews Iain M Banks Sci-Fi and Culture series
Culture Series
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...Non-Culture Sci-Fi
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
February 11, 2018
This is good. It is as intelligent as the more contemporary 'The Bridge' (which so far is still my favorite novel coming from Iain Banks that I have yet read - I am still wading through his books), it is not set in the Culture series, but as a stand alone sci-fi novel with a very unique aspect about it, just as all his novels contain. However, my main misgiving (which also stopped me reading the book the first time I attempted it several years ago) was the phonetically written sections by a character called Bascule. However, this attempt of re-reading was a success, and whilst most would be put off from the 'text-speech' at first, it does become easier as the book progresses and you get used to it. It took me a while mind, but the character who speaks in this manner also has a comedic value too. Give it time and you get used to it, but it does make the novel slower to read.
A completely confusing, weird, off-the-cuff, obscurely written tale about - umm - multiple existences, space elevators, talking chimeric creatures, artificial intelligence, a world about to be extinguished by something called 'The Encroachment' (space fog about to obliterate the sun), saviors (Bascule and his talking Ant are some of these), and other tangential things. It needs to be re-read, having slowly throughout the book becoming used to the Bascule character and his phonetic writing. Good, but odd. 4 stars.
A completely confusing, weird, off-the-cuff, obscurely written tale about - umm - multiple existences, space elevators, talking chimeric creatures, artificial intelligence, a world about to be extinguished by something called 'The Encroachment' (space fog about to obliterate the sun), saviors (Bascule and his talking Ant are some of these), and other tangential things. It needs to be re-read, having slowly throughout the book becoming used to the Bascule character and his phonetic writing. Good, but odd. 4 stars.
August 10, 2023
the rumors are true. i have indeed finally finished a book.
December 16, 2024
It's a confusing book, but in a way that makes you curious about its world and plot. But really, the phonetic writing of one of the POVs killed me. It's kind of cool to have the way I usually read challenged, but I never really got attached to this part of the narrative because of it. In general, attachement and emotional responses is what my reading experience was lacking reading this book, though it was a fascinating and creative novel.
August 27, 2009
This book was my introduction to Iain Banks, who was recommended to me by a friend.
I've no idea if this book is indicative of the rest of his oeuvre, but the best word I can come up with to describe "Feersum Endjinn" is "weird."
The plot in a nutshell: It is thousands of years in the future, and Earth is threatened by a sun-blocking cloud of space dust which may well destroy all human life on the planet. Said humans are very long lived indeed at this point, because there's been a bit of an update to the Biblical pronouncement: it is now appointed unto a man 7 times to die, and after that to be judged (based on his uniqueness) by the "Crypt," the vast computer network / VR system that is capable of downloading all that makes an individual, and then uploading it again into a new body.
Some believe that a solution to the encroaching cloud is contained in the cryptosphere, but their attempts to find it are being blocked by the powers that be. There are mysteries and conspiracies (very difficult to maintain when all but the most privileged may have their minds read at any time) and a minor war...
Anyway, this doesn't sound quite as strange as it actually is. The point of view for each chapter changes from character to character, and one young lad, Bascule, who turns out to be central to the plot is writing his experiences down in a journal. Turns out this fellow is somehow inherently unable to learn to spell. He 1/2 2 put down evryfing zactly as it sownds. If u fink reeding dis paragraf is iritating, tri reeding hole chaptirs uv it. Its hard on yor brane. & den, jist wen u fink ur geting thi hang uv it, he meets an uther charactir wif a lisp!!
OK, I'm done. :) (To be honest, I have to admit to being mildly impressed with the author's ability to write that way: it takes a lot of concentration to intentionally mis-spell!)
Certainly Bascule's chapters lend an extremely unusual flavor to the book, and there are plenty of other very odd elements in the universe Banks has created, but when all is said and done I cannot really rank the end product very highly. I found myself a bit bored, especially in the first half, and frustrated by Bascule's writing even though I liked the character. But I won't write Banks off just yet: I'll try at least one or two others before making my final judgment.
I've no idea if this book is indicative of the rest of his oeuvre, but the best word I can come up with to describe "Feersum Endjinn" is "weird."
The plot in a nutshell: It is thousands of years in the future, and Earth is threatened by a sun-blocking cloud of space dust which may well destroy all human life on the planet. Said humans are very long lived indeed at this point, because there's been a bit of an update to the Biblical pronouncement: it is now appointed unto a man 7 times to die, and after that to be judged (based on his uniqueness) by the "Crypt," the vast computer network / VR system that is capable of downloading all that makes an individual, and then uploading it again into a new body.
Some believe that a solution to the encroaching cloud is contained in the cryptosphere, but their attempts to find it are being blocked by the powers that be. There are mysteries and conspiracies (very difficult to maintain when all but the most privileged may have their minds read at any time) and a minor war...
Anyway, this doesn't sound quite as strange as it actually is. The point of view for each chapter changes from character to character, and one young lad, Bascule, who turns out to be central to the plot is writing his experiences down in a journal. Turns out this fellow is somehow inherently unable to learn to spell. He 1/2 2 put down evryfing zactly as it sownds. If u fink reeding dis paragraf is iritating, tri reeding hole chaptirs uv it. Its hard on yor brane. & den, jist wen u fink ur geting thi hang uv it, he meets an uther charactir wif a lisp!!
OK, I'm done. :) (To be honest, I have to admit to being mildly impressed with the author's ability to write that way: it takes a lot of concentration to intentionally mis-spell!)
Certainly Bascule's chapters lend an extremely unusual flavor to the book, and there are plenty of other very odd elements in the universe Banks has created, but when all is said and done I cannot really rank the end product very highly. I found myself a bit bored, especially in the first half, and frustrated by Bascule's writing even though I liked the character. But I won't write Banks off just yet: I'll try at least one or two others before making my final judgment.
August 15, 2008
In my opinion, this is Banks' best work yet. I really liked it a lot.
There were a few minor difficulties. About one quarter of the book is written phonetically, which is really interesting, but hard to read. After a couple chapters you get used to it, though. Also, the description on the back of the edition that I have is only vaguely related to the actual story. The back talks about Count Sessine, who I feel is only a minor character. There is little or no mention of the encroachment (an interstellar dust cloud which threatens to put out the sun within a few generations) or the fact that the entire world is a gigantic scale model of a single room, with dressers that are miles tall, and castles built in the chandelier.
There were a few minor difficulties. About one quarter of the book is written phonetically, which is really interesting, but hard to read. After a couple chapters you get used to it, though. Also, the description on the back of the edition that I have is only vaguely related to the actual story. The back talks about Count Sessine, who I feel is only a minor character. There is little or no mention of the encroachment (an interstellar dust cloud which threatens to put out the sun within a few generations) or the fact that the entire world is a gigantic scale model of a single room, with dressers that are miles tall, and castles built in the chandelier.
January 26, 2008
When I finished this novel I wasn't sure if I liked it. With a good portion of the book written in the vernacular of our grammar-challenged hero, and a whole lot of heady stuff like cyber regions and vast settings, Iain Banks isn't giving the reader an easy go of it. I even had to seach the Internet for
discussions on the story afterwords to be sure that what happened was what I thought had happened.
Looking back after a few days I just can't help but be impressed with the novel as a whole. So yeah, if you've read Iain Banks, you already know what a brilliant chap he is. This, like all his other novels I've read, is worth the effort.
discussions on the story afterwords to be sure that what happened was what I thought had happened.
Looking back after a few days I just can't help but be impressed with the novel as a whole. So yeah, if you've read Iain Banks, you already know what a brilliant chap he is. This, like all his other novels I've read, is worth the effort.
June 7, 2016
This was the first book by Banks I’ve ever read, and I suspect it may be my last unless another one rears its ugly head in the SF Masterworks collection. Every fourth section of this book was written in a strange dialect of text message short hand that was very troublesome to read, yet these sections were the best parts. On the whole the rest of the book was confusing and really didn’t engage me in any way. My advice – don’t bother with this book, it’s just too much hard work and not enough reward.
April 17, 2023
Anoche lo terminé después de haberlo estado leyendo por, literalmente, años para darle una oportunidad. No hay caso. No me gustó nada.
Puede ser la traducción, pero creo que ni en inglés la historia me conectaría.
No se qué más decir. Una decepción.
Puede ser la traducción, pero creo que ni en inglés la historia me conectaría.
No se qué más decir. Una decepción.
April 20, 2019
3.5 stars
September 13, 2024
En un futur llunyà els habitants de la Terra veuen perillar la seua existència per l'aproximació d'un fenomen còsmic, "la Intrusión", una espècie de núvol de pols interestel·lar que s'apropa al planeta i pot acabar amb la vida al bloquejar totalment la llum del Sol.
En la novel·la seguirem a quatre personatges, les vivències dels quals es narren en capítols propis que es van encadenant: Asura, una dona creada per la Criptosfera (el món de la realitat virtual, al que tots els humans tenen accés); Hortis Gadfium, científica en cap, que intenta resoldre el misteri de "la Llanura de las Piedras Deslizantes" i poder-se comunicar amb la "Forta-torre", restes de la tecnologia superior d'anteriors civilitzacions humanes, els secrets científics de les quals avui s'han oblidat; el Comte Alendre Sessine, general dels exèrcits del Rei, enfrontat a la rebelió del Clan dels Enginyers; i Baskule "el Narrador", un adolescent novici de l'ordre pseudoreligiosa que es dedica a "navegar" per la Criptosfera. Les aventures dels quatre aniran convergint fins a la resolució, entre èpica i críptica, del llibre.
Si us sembla un argument enrevessat, us he fet una mostra només d'una xicoteta part.
Pot ser no és la novel·la de ciència-ficció més fàcil de llegir de l'autor, que ja de per sí és expert en trames enrevessades, universos estranys plens de detalls i nombrosos personatges, però és una gran història amb la marca de la casa. Per iniciats en l'univers d'Iain M. Banks.
Premi BSFA 1995
En la novel·la seguirem a quatre personatges, les vivències dels quals es narren en capítols propis que es van encadenant: Asura, una dona creada per la Criptosfera (el món de la realitat virtual, al que tots els humans tenen accés); Hortis Gadfium, científica en cap, que intenta resoldre el misteri de "la Llanura de las Piedras Deslizantes" i poder-se comunicar amb la "Forta-torre", restes de la tecnologia superior d'anteriors civilitzacions humanes, els secrets científics de les quals avui s'han oblidat; el Comte Alendre Sessine, general dels exèrcits del Rei, enfrontat a la rebelió del Clan dels Enginyers; i Baskule "el Narrador", un adolescent novici de l'ordre pseudoreligiosa que es dedica a "navegar" per la Criptosfera. Les aventures dels quatre aniran convergint fins a la resolució, entre èpica i críptica, del llibre.
Si us sembla un argument enrevessat, us he fet una mostra només d'una xicoteta part.
Pot ser no és la novel·la de ciència-ficció més fàcil de llegir de l'autor, que ja de per sí és expert en trames enrevessades, universos estranys plens de detalls i nombrosos personatges, però és una gran història amb la marca de la casa. Per iniciats en l'univers d'Iain M. Banks.
Premi BSFA 1995
July 10, 2017
3.5 stars
This was quite a weird book even by Iain M Banks’ standards. Weird, in terms of writing style (those phonetics yo! You kind of get used to that after a while though) and also in terms of the plot directions.
In regards to the plot directions, I found it one of the weaker ones written by Banks. We had 3 or 4 characters in different but related story arcs which was fascinating up until the point where one or two of the characters’ arcs turned out to be quite unnecessary, in my opinion. If we had had less focus/page space away from these and more on the others that when the story arcs merged during the climax, it wouldn’t have felt like a waste of time in a way.
I like weird, I especially love the way Bank’s played with his narrative styles so much in this and the other books of his I’ve read so far so the phonetics was just added incentive to continue on with the book. I got what I wanted from this. Other than the plotting issue, all of Banks’ strength were delivered here so it was a fun book to get through.
This was quite a weird book even by Iain M Banks’ standards. Weird, in terms of writing style (those phonetics yo! You kind of get used to that after a while though) and also in terms of the plot directions.
In regards to the plot directions, I found it one of the weaker ones written by Banks. We had 3 or 4 characters in different but related story arcs which was fascinating up until the point where one or two of the characters’ arcs turned out to be quite unnecessary, in my opinion. If we had had less focus/page space away from these and more on the others that when the story arcs merged during the climax, it wouldn’t have felt like a waste of time in a way.
I like weird, I especially love the way Bank’s played with his narrative styles so much in this and the other books of his I’ve read so far so the phonetics was just added incentive to continue on with the book. I got what I wanted from this. Other than the plotting issue, all of Banks’ strength were delivered here so it was a fun book to get through.
August 16, 2022
So creative, and a rare occurrence where I feel the book could have done with being longer.
April 6, 2024
This book was probably more relevant near the time of its publication. Unfotunately it did not fully age well. There are some Tron vibes here with virtual worlds and digital existence, but not enough to hold its own today.
May 5, 2016
I'm a huge fan of Banks's Culture novels (see my blog post on all of them: http://examinedworlds.blogspot.com/20...). I also enjoyed The Algebraist and The Wasp Factory. I really wanted to give this five stars, but despite heavy doses of Banksian brilliance, I can't say it quite measures up to his other work.
It's not that I didn't like this one. The writing is often beautiful. The semi-phonetic chapters are brilliant as much as they are initially frustrating (you do get used to it after awhile). The story (such as I was able to make out) is wild, original, and delightfully complex. The novel unfolds in groups of four chapters, with each chapter following a particular character: a mysterious woman known as the asura (a Sanskrit word for a kind of divine being or demon), a Count on his last lifetime (oh yeah, some people get seven lifetimes), a scientist trying to decipher mysterious messages (and also caught up in a conspiracy), and everybody's favorite, Bascule the Teller, who is on a quest to find his friend who is an ant (we read his semi-phonetic journal). The book is actually even a bit weirder than I'm making it sound, but I like weird.
My main criticism is that, as obvious as it is that Banks is doing something brilliant here, it's not always entirely clear just what he's doing. Maybe I'm not clever enough, but this is not easy reading. I usually take 100 pages or so to get into a Banks novel, and Banks always expects a lot of faith from his readers that he's going to explain everything in the end (and blow your mind in the process). Feersum Endjinn took me a lot of work to get into, and there is a lot more explanation that you think you're going to get, but I can't decide if I'm satisfied. Maybe it's a strength of the book that I can't decide what I think about it.
Philosophical themes of death and personal identity are present, but not dealt with in as much depth as you'll find in say, Surface Detail. Given that the plot is about humans in the far future who stay on Earth and remain distrustful of (some) technology, I suppose there's a lot about our relationship with technology (this becomes most apparent at the very end, but to say more gets into spoiler territory). Also, the humans who eschewed space travel are all threatened by the Encroachment, a cosmic cloud that threatens to block the sun. Should they have left? Unlike the Culture, this is no space opera, since the whole thing takes place on a very far future Earth.
There's a seriously giant castle, with rooms measured in kilometers. There is this virtual reality realm where time moves much faster. It occurred to me that the semi-phonetic chapters may be meant to give the reader the experience of slowing down time - it took me about twice as long to read those chapters! What does this say about our sense of time in terms of experience and communication?
I may need to read this again to catch everything (or even most of it). It was hard to pause for philosophical reflection when I was putting so much effort into deciphering the plot, but maybe that was Banks's point: the universe itself is so hard to figure out, maybe we should just chill out and enjoy the ride!
It's not that I didn't like this one. The writing is often beautiful. The semi-phonetic chapters are brilliant as much as they are initially frustrating (you do get used to it after awhile). The story (such as I was able to make out) is wild, original, and delightfully complex. The novel unfolds in groups of four chapters, with each chapter following a particular character: a mysterious woman known as the asura (a Sanskrit word for a kind of divine being or demon), a Count on his last lifetime (oh yeah, some people get seven lifetimes), a scientist trying to decipher mysterious messages (and also caught up in a conspiracy), and everybody's favorite, Bascule the Teller, who is on a quest to find his friend who is an ant (we read his semi-phonetic journal). The book is actually even a bit weirder than I'm making it sound, but I like weird.
My main criticism is that, as obvious as it is that Banks is doing something brilliant here, it's not always entirely clear just what he's doing. Maybe I'm not clever enough, but this is not easy reading. I usually take 100 pages or so to get into a Banks novel, and Banks always expects a lot of faith from his readers that he's going to explain everything in the end (and blow your mind in the process). Feersum Endjinn took me a lot of work to get into, and there is a lot more explanation that you think you're going to get, but I can't decide if I'm satisfied. Maybe it's a strength of the book that I can't decide what I think about it.
Philosophical themes of death and personal identity are present, but not dealt with in as much depth as you'll find in say, Surface Detail. Given that the plot is about humans in the far future who stay on Earth and remain distrustful of (some) technology, I suppose there's a lot about our relationship with technology (this becomes most apparent at the very end, but to say more gets into spoiler territory). Also, the humans who eschewed space travel are all threatened by the Encroachment, a cosmic cloud that threatens to block the sun. Should they have left? Unlike the Culture, this is no space opera, since the whole thing takes place on a very far future Earth.
There's a seriously giant castle, with rooms measured in kilometers. There is this virtual reality realm where time moves much faster. It occurred to me that the semi-phonetic chapters may be meant to give the reader the experience of slowing down time - it took me about twice as long to read those chapters! What does this say about our sense of time in terms of experience and communication?
I may need to read this again to catch everything (or even most of it). It was hard to pause for philosophical reflection when I was putting so much effort into deciphering the plot, but maybe that was Banks's point: the universe itself is so hard to figure out, maybe we should just chill out and enjoy the ride!
June 1, 2010
Man, this book was hard to get through... about a third of it is written from the point of view of young Bascule, who uses an idiosyncratic orthography that is part cellphone text and l33tspeak, and part Charlie Gordon in his pre-savant phase. In its way, this is quite a sustained achievement, but having to sound out the narrative for those parts word by word does rather interrupt the flow.
Ultimately, I found this one not nearly as satisfying as Banks' other works... in addition to Bascule's near-impenetrable dialect, there's a Big Reveal near the end that seems to come out of nowhere, while resolving very little. And the setting is, for all its decadent weirdness, one we've encountered before, really—the post-historical Earth much changed due to catastrophe and time, the ancestors much wiser than we who set up autonomous systems that will Save Us All as long as we can fulfill a few simple requirements—if only we hadn't lost track of just what those requirements are!
This isn't a bad book—I don't think Banks is capable of writing a bad book, from the evidence to date—and it does contain memorable lines, such as this one:
But Feersum Endjinn ends up being a bit more work than I think we really should be asked to perform.
Ultimately, I found this one not nearly as satisfying as Banks' other works... in addition to Bascule's near-impenetrable dialect, there's a Big Reveal near the end that seems to come out of nowhere, while resolving very little. And the setting is, for all its decadent weirdness, one we've encountered before, really—the post-historical Earth much changed due to catastrophe and time, the ancestors much wiser than we who set up autonomous systems that will Save Us All as long as we can fulfill a few simple requirements—if only we hadn't lost track of just what those requirements are!
This isn't a bad book—I don't think Banks is capable of writing a bad book, from the evidence to date—and it does contain memorable lines, such as this one:
"In my experience those who are most sincere are also the most morally suspect, as well as being incapable of producing or appreciating wit."
—Pieter Velteseri, p. 132
But Feersum Endjinn ends up being a bit more work than I think we really should be asked to perform.
February 19, 2010
This is the first book I have change the grade after re-reading. It is still a great book, but I no longer think it is grand.
Although it is not a Culture books, there are some winks to Banks' preferred technologies. Here he takes the well used subject of humankind on earth at the end of time and gives it a spin. I thought I saw a couple of winks to Gene Wolfe, but may be it is in my eyes.
The story is told by the weaving of four almost concurrent narratives, including an "infamous" pseudo-phonetic writing. It is made harder by the intercalation of the text within normal texts, as it is not so hard when you get used to it.
As usual the future extrapolation and technologies are interesting and twisted, the characters are interesting, even the good guys, though the choral structure leaves some characterizations short.
My main complaint is precisely that, some parts fall short, some characters are left almost blank, and the ending is too rushed and Deus Ex Machina-contrived. We knew it was going to be like that, but it could have been handled with the same care and detail as the rest of the book. As it is, it looks as if the author hit a deadline date and just wrapped up the final chapter.
Although it is not a Culture books, there are some winks to Banks' preferred technologies. Here he takes the well used subject of humankind on earth at the end of time and gives it a spin. I thought I saw a couple of winks to Gene Wolfe, but may be it is in my eyes.
The story is told by the weaving of four almost concurrent narratives, including an "infamous" pseudo-phonetic writing. It is made harder by the intercalation of the text within normal texts, as it is not so hard when you get used to it.
As usual the future extrapolation and technologies are interesting and twisted, the characters are interesting, even the good guys, though the choral structure leaves some characterizations short.
My main complaint is precisely that, some parts fall short, some characters are left almost blank, and the ending is too rushed and Deus Ex Machina-contrived. We knew it was going to be like that, but it could have been handled with the same care and detail as the rest of the book. As it is, it looks as if the author hit a deadline date and just wrapped up the final chapter.
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