Surface Detail [electronic resource] :

Title:

Author:

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It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. It begins with a murder. And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself. Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release - when it comes - is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture. Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful - and arguably deranged - warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war - brutal, far-reaching - is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality. It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the center of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether.

Publisher:

Orbit,

Date:

2010

Digital Format:

CLOUDLIBRARY EPUB

Language:

English

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Banks's labyrinthine and devious ninth Culture space opera novel (after 2008's Matter) adeptly shifts perspective between vast concepts and individual passions. The blissfully disorganized, galaxy-spanning Culture has fabulous technology that gives human and alien entities freedom to choose who and what they want to be. When sex slave Lededje Y'breq is murdered by a politician on the planet Sichult, the artificial intelligence running one of the Culture's immense starships resurrects her so she can seek revenge. Meanwhile, the Culture is uneasily watching the conflict over whether to preserve virtual Hells for the souls of "sinners" or give them the release of death. Leaping with jaw-dropping speed from character to character and from reality to virtuality, the narrative swiftly pulls these concerns together. New readers may be taken aback by the rapid pace, but fans will dive right in and won't come up for air until the final page. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Guardian Review

Iain M Banks has never been known to spare his characters suffering. Across his previous Culture novels, major and minor players have been blown up, tortured, hacked to pieces and, in one particularly gruesome example, skinned and turned into a chair. Within the first four chapters of Surface Detail, Banks introduces three likable, sympathetic characters and then immediately appears to kill them off. But in the world of the Culture, where a neural lace woven into the brain allows people to back themselves up, and simulated realities can be indistinguishable from the real thing, death is rarely permanent. So we follow the fortunes of Lededje Y'breq, an indentured slave marked with a full-body tattoo - branding her as the property of the vile Veppers, as she attempts to escape and have her revenge. Interlaced with her story is the tale of Vateuil, a universal soldier fighting a never-ending war on fronts as diverse as the siege of a medieval castle and an attack on an ice-fortress by barely corporeal energy beings. Dotted through the book are the moving travails of Prin and Chay, elephant-like aliens who have infiltrated their society's version of hell to expose what goes on there but find escaping harder than they'd hoped. The idea of hell is at the heart of the book. Many civilisations in Banks's imagined future are able to record mind-states, to rehouse old minds in new bodies and to allow disembodied minds to inhabit virtual environments. Banks posits that some civilisations would create afterlives. And some of those afterlives would, inevitably, contain hells. This depressing conclusion is sadly persuasive. The suggestion that some societies, given enough resources, would create a monstrous place of torment with which to threaten their citizens seems all-too-plausible to anyone who's seen a fundamentalist Christian "Hell house" designed to terrify teenagers into obedience and conformity. It's over the fate of these hells - whether they are to remain or be destroyed - that Vateuil is fighting his endless war. It's to expose them that Chay ends up trapped in one. And, although Lededje doesn't know it, her quest to revenge herself on Veppers ends up being pivotal to the battle. As with many of Banks's works, this is an engrossing novel of ideas ornamented by fantastically cinematic set-pieces. The "surface detail" of the title - a reference to Lededje's fractal tattoo - recurs in the decisions that have to be made along the way. Repeatedly, Banks introduces characters and then swoops outwards, taking us to the macro context where the minutiae of those lives are invisible. The needs of individuals and the needs of the many are in constant conflict. Is Lededje's desire for justifiable vengeance worth more than the possibility of destroying the hells for ever? Can Chay be sacrificed for the greater good? When spaceships battle on an epic scale, what happens to the tiny, fragile people within them? Those who love the Culture will know the best lines often go to the artificial intelligences. In Surface Detail the stand-out character is a sadistic Abominator class ship called the "Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints". The warship's barely concealed glee when, after centuries of waiting, it finally gets to blow some other ships up, is hilarious, and its motives remain intriguingly mysterious. Some other characters, particularly the Special Circumstance agent Yime Nsokyi, remain a little underdrawn. But this is a minor quibble - the novel's real power lies in the absorbing questions it poses about the value of the real, as opposed to the virtual, about who or what is expendable, and whether a society is better held together by threats or by promises. Naomi Alderman's The Lessons is published by Viking. To order Surface Detail for pounds 12.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Naomi Alderman As with many of Banks's works, this is an engrossing novel of ideas ornamented by fantastically cinematic set-pieces. The "surface detail" of the title - a reference to Lededje's fractal tattoo - recurs in the decisions that have to be made along the way. Repeatedly, [Iain M Banks] introduces characters and then swoops outwards, taking us to the macro context where the minutiae of those lives are invisible. The needs of individuals and the needs of the many are in constant conflict. Is Lededje's desire for justifiable vengeance worth more than the possibility of destroying the hells for ever? Can Chay be sacrificed for the greater good? When spaceships battle on an epic scale, what happens to the tiny, fragile people within them? - Naomi Alderman.

Booklist Review

Beginning with Consider Phlebas (1987), Banks' Culture novels have showcased his prodigious talent for world building, featuring extravagant vistas of superadvanced technological civilizations and their virtual-reality playgrounds. In the ninth outsize installment, Banks juggles multiple plot threads on a sweeping canvas, embracing Culture-based artificial worlds known as orbitals, supremely powerful artificial intelligences, and virtual heavens and hells. One story line follows the murder and AI-facilitated resurrection of tattooed sex slave Lededje Y'breq, who is willingly conscripted in a plan to exact revenge on her politician killer and shift the balance of power between embattled Culture factions. Another follows the efforts of two quadruped creatures called Pavuleans to pry their way out of a secret virtual hell and back into the Real, where wealthy moguls are gearing up for war among the digital realms. While each Culture novel can be read alone, newcomers are advised to breathe deeply before diving in, as Banks never lets up in a dizzying array of characters, mind-bending ideas, and dazzling action.--Hays, Carl Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal Review

This is the eighth "The Culture" novel from internationally best-selling British sf writer Banks (www.iainbanks.net), following Matter (2008). It features a gigantic symbiotic series of civilizations spanning the Milky Way Galaxy (at least) and melding artificial intelligence constructs, biological life forms from myriad races, and much, much more. The plot, in short: a spoiled but clever bad guy is pursued by a woman he killed as a war brews among the Heavens, a network of posthumously uploaded consciousnesses. Banks's colorful style is similar to that of "Golden Age" master (and Scientology founder) L. Ron Hubbard and is wonderfully enhanced by voice-over artist Peter Kenny's expressive, humorous, British--accented narration; characters pile into the ears with precise delineation. A phenomenal performance of a well-written and well-plotted sf book that is easily a stand-alone; highly recommended.-Don Wismer, Trustee Emeritus, Cary Memorial Lib., Wayne, ME (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.