Iain M. Banks - Surface Detail

Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks

Hell and Paradise certainly do not exist. However, humans have been trying with various degrees of success to create both of those on Earth. Prisons, more specifically, are playing the role of hell-on-earth, a place where "bad" guys go to be punished. The main theme of Banks' latest Culture Novel is virtual Hells. Some species do not see life as a series of consecutive parties like the Culture does, although their tech levels allow them to stop caring about resources. The Culture is of course dissapointed with that, but their self-induced non-interfering foreign policy does not let them take matters into hand and "convince" those decadants by force. Other species do not share these non-intervention ideals and soon a war between pro-Hell and anti-Hell camps is due. This war will not take place in the Real. Both sides of the conflict agree to fight a Virtual War in order to spare lives and resources.

Parallel to that, a girl tries to escape from her master and becomes the prey to his hunting fetish once more. The girl, victim of an ancient socioeconomic relic of her species had been her master's compensation for a family debt that could not be repaid properly. This time, the whole incident goes out of proportions and ends with her murder by her own master's hand. The fact that a Culture Ship has backed her up and provided a neural lace to her without anyone, including herself, knowing it, becomes the catalyst for a series of developments with far-reaching consequences. As a matter of fact, it goes so far that it turns out to be the start of the completion of the Hell War. At the end of it all, the prey becomes the hunter.

Good 'ol science fiction (Asimov et al) has often been accused of being low-quality literature in terms of language and character development and all that. I was always of the opinion that these things, important as they might be, cannot and should not eclipse the brilliancy of Asimov's fantastic worlds, but even I acknowledge the fact that most of the great totems of the genre were not the best writers of their times, their language wasn't on par with their creative imagination. Iain Banks does not fit this category. And I quote "...like many societies finding their hitherto unquestioned customs and ethical assumptions impacting squarely with the breath-takingly sophisticated summed morality of a meta-civilisation inestimably older, vaster and by implication wiser than themselves, the Sichultia became highly protective of their developmental foibles, and refused to mandate away what some of them at least claimed to regard as one of their defining social characteristics and a vital and vibrant part of their culture..."

Iain Banks is a phenomenon!

Reviewed at the social site for books and libraries http://www.librarything.com by trandism

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Stephen Baxter - Flood

Flood by Stephen Baxter

I've been introduced to Stephen Baxter via Arthur Clarke's Time Odyssey, a series that Baxter co-authored with the great maestro and I have the suspicion that I'm not the only one. Quite a few people would disagree, but I always thought that what makes a science fiction writer worthy is - amongst other things - the capability of turning one simple idea into a full-blown story that describes a world totally different from the real and then trying to imagine how this world's society would function under the circumstances.Baxter does that well. His narrative might be mediocre and his characters a little shallow, but this book is a page-turner. It really is impossible to put it down as long as your eyes stay open. The idea is simple enough. At some point the waters start rising. Climate-change skeptics and global warming deniers relax. The waters rise fast and it's not because the ice caps are melting. On the contrary, the mainstream opinion about the phenomenon gets a good beating.

Big cities get drowned, refugees aplenty. All geopolitical facts from the past doesn't make any sense now. Baxter takes us through a total reevaluation of humanity's values. Owing land on the high grounds becomes the greatest asset. Independence from foreign trade routes is equally important. Poor countries become rich and vice versa. A group of scientists try to explain the new situation. They get sponsoring from certain individuals. Those individuals who get the data first, act first and end up becoming the most powerful men in the world just because they were the first to understand that buying land on high altitude is the wise thing to do. And the waters keep on rising. Baxter takes it to the extreme. Humans are forced to turn into aquatic creatures. Nepal and Tibet end up being the last superpowers of history. At the end, people live on rafts. There is a generation born that never knew how it is to live on land. All and all, an exciting thriller desperately in need of a sequel.

Reviewed at the social site for books and libraries http://www.librarything.com by trandism

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