EXCESSION – Iain M. Banks (1996)

People change. It must have been 2008 when I started reading fiction again, and Iain Banks’ Culture series became among the first things I devoured. Excession was my favorite of the series back then, and I decided it was time to reread it – hopefully to be entertained and awed again, and, at the very least, to take a long, hard look in the mirror of time.

For those unfamiliar with Banks & the Culture novels: they are widely considered to be among the best in the genre. Hugely influential space opera, on a grand scale. And a big plus: contrary to most of today’s series, the nine Culture books – published from 1987 to 2012 – can all be read as standalones.

As hivemind Wikipedia has it, the Culture is “a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced superintelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats spread across the Milky Way galaxy.”

The Culture is technologically so advanced that it can practically do anything with matter, has access to FTL and nearly unlimited genetic technology. That results in near-immortality and, just to pick one example, the ability to change sex in about a year just by thinking about it. Banks hit upon a gold vein when he conceived of the Culture, as it allows for about anything to happen, but not in an inconsistent or random way.

Excession is about an unprecedented alien artifact appearing out of nowhere. It particularly zooms in on the reaction of a couple of so-called Minds – “benevolent AIs with enormous intellectual and physical capabilities” that often inhabit & control enormous ships of ten or more kilometers, some of them home to billions of individuals. These Minds all have distinct, at times eccentric, personalities.

The ‘excession’ of the title is a sphere that suddenly appears in space, seemingly older than the Universe, resisting attempts to be probed easily, its control of physical laws vastly superior to the Culture’s. It’s Banks riff on a Big Dumb Object.

Last time I read a speculative work of Banks was in June 2019, over 4 years ago. I didn’t think Transition was a success, and I vehemently disliked The Algebraist, which I started in 2018. Before that I read Inversions, and I didn’t really like that either. So I was starting to wonder: was I too easily impressed in 2008 and 2009? Or did, by sheer luck, I read all the Iain M. Banks books that where least to my liking last?

It turns out – as expected – the answer is a bit of both. I did like rereading Excession – mostly, that is. But I wouldn’t call it a favorite book anymore, and I’ve taken it off my list.

Let’s do a quick run-up of the good and the bad.

+ The Culture, as a system, is great. It aligns ideologically: Banks shows that the means of production determine society. In a world where everything can be produced everywhere without much problems or effort, class based on income ceases to exist. He also shows that much of morality is based on the body too, so if the body is overcome, it has an effect on morality as well – a bit like the invention of birth control changed everything in the 60ies. In a world of plenty and without pathology, crime simply does not exist, except for some fringe cases. And all that ties again into morality. Technology & wealth distribution have an effect on human relations, love, families. And so Banks indeed writes a utopia. Avoid doing harm, live and let live. The ethics of the Culture may superficially seem merely hedonistic, but ultimately they are about personal freedom and the avoidance of suffering. As a sociological thought experiment, the Culture as an idea continues to have merit, and I don’t think it has lost any of its relevance in 2023 – whether you are woke, libertarian or a classic liberal reading The Economist.

+ Banks’ theory of mind aligns with mine too. Our brains are matter, and hence other matter could be made aware too. It’s just a matter of patterns & assembly – not that I think we’ll get conscious AI in our own world soon. All the drones and Minds and ships do have rights and can make their own decisions. It is not that dissimilar from what ethicist Peter Singer talks about. Add to that the fact that Banks realizes the mind is the only place where we truly exist.

+ It would be a good master’s thesis to check Banks’ stance on determinism. In a way, people and AI have endless choices to reconfigure themselves, yet they still retain a certain essence, a way they just are, that does determine their decisions – like that warship that does what it does because it is a warship.

+ Even though Banks stresses matter, there is explicit mysticism and Miracle too. Just like in real life.

+ Original. Wild imagination. Diverse. The works. This doesn’t feel almost 30 years old at all.

+ Two good action scenes, one of which is just about building momentum.

+ Smooth prose.

+ Great sense of universal time & galactic space. Banks manages to convey something of distance and time – be it millennia or microseconds. A sub-theme of Excession is not about survival of a planet or a star system, but about the survival of the universe as such.

– Parts of this are a bit juvenile. I’d noticed this streak too when I read The Wasp Factory, Banks’ debut, a non-sci fi novel. Especially one of the opening chapters on the Affront, another alien species, seems just there for shock value. On the other hand, the Affront themselves do pose a typical Banks’ conundrum: how far should you go to protect others from suffering, when to intervene as a ‘more developed’ culture? It’s an old question in scifi: questioning the ethics of the Prime Directive.

– I didn’t really care for the human characters. They don’t seem developed enough. That made the last part of the book a bit boring too, when everything conjoins. Also the Minds were a bit lackluster. I remembered their conversations as verbal firework, but I guess I leveled up in the meantime. Character-wise, most of the Minds are pretty interchangeable as well, and that’s a bit of a problem for a novel explicitly focused on Minds. A few stand out though: Sleeper Service, Killing Time and Grey Area – especially Sleeper Service is a great character.

– All and all, the plot seems complicated, but in the end it’s rather thin. Banks is very good at setting up mysteries though, and manages to keep interest going for the bulk of the novel. It’s just that in the final 4th of book at times I thought: ‘is this it?’

– On a second reading, the sense of awe & discovery is a whole lot less, and a book like this significantly hinges on that sense. I think if I had read this now, in 2023, for the first time, I’d enjoyed it a whole lot more.

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All and all, Excession is a solid, entertaining book that I have no trouble to recommend. But, but – I used to rate it 5 stars on Goodreads, and now I want to downrate that to three and a half. Still good, just no masterpiece. That said, the Culture as a whole, as an invention, a storytelling frame, remains 5-star material. At the same time, I think the chance is slim I’ll ever reread another Banks. I’ll keep them on the shelves though, and that counts for something too.

If you are new to Banks or the Culture, my advice is to start with Player of Games, the second Culture book, and then read more or less in order of publication. In a way, I envy such blank slate – there’s lots to discover.

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