Feersum Endjinn

My manager basically forced this book upon me. And I'm glad he did. ;) (It wasn't forced, per sé; but he recommended it over and over, and his eccentric tastes quite often match mine.) So I borrowed it last summer, and forgot about it until just a few weeks ago, when I guiltily picked it up, hoping to finish before moving.Thank you. This book was awesome.The story is in ten chapters, each of which is broken down into four points of view -- a confused foreigner, the chief scientist, a count in the military, and a young kid with spelling issues. (Other viewpoints come along from time to time--for example, the king.) The story evolves through these four completely separate personae: the Earth is being approached by the Encroachment, which is this bizarre cloud that threatens to block out the sun; the people in power are doing little, it seems, to stop it. The four main characters must figure out who they are and what they're doing; only then do they have a hope of figuring out what's going on and stopping the end of the world.At least, that's the basic story. I don't want to go into any more detail because I don't want to give things away. :) It's an amazing book, and I give it my highest recommendation.

I love Iain Banks novels, so I guess I might be a tad biased in reviewing is works, but you have to belive me when I say that this is one of his best books, and that is saying a lot believe me. The setting is a far future earth with gargantuan buildings, and a moribund society (in some respects at least). The setting would be familiar to readers of Gene Wolfes equally excellent New Sun series. Super technology, and strange beasts populate this world that possesses a really likeable version of the internet. A highlight of the book is Bascule the Teller's speech pattern, and in fact his entire banter, which is done phonetically. Count Sessine, a mysterious woman from the crypt (whose introduction sequence is really good by the way) and Scientist Gadfium make up the other protagonists of this story about an armageddon-like event approaching the earth. READ THE BOOK NOW AND BE AMAZED. nuff said.

I think the novel is a great work of art, full of beautiful images, great characters. I'm often bored by Sience Fiction which always consists of the same key-elements, but Iain Banks SF-novels are in fact non-genre novels more comparable to other great novels in literature. Read 'Feersum Endjinn'- you will love it.

Banks is the first writer to really experiment all the possibilities of cyberspace in novels, testing every aspect of it in its more juicy details: clock lag between simulated and real time (the hero connects himself during an very long fall to have some time to think about what to do), avatars, the endless repetition allowed by simulation, the personalization of our environment allowed in the virtual,... Gibson invented Cyberspace and begun to play with the possibilities, but Banks goes much further here. This novel is as excellent as the others of Banks, Culture or not, but in my opinion, this experimental dimension makes it a masterpiece: this novel will count. P@