Great exposition about the Culture that names the series, but rather confusing storyline. Leaves something to be desired in comparison to earlier books. ( )

Excession digs deeper into the inner workings of the Culture society than the other parts of the series I've read before. I liked it for that reason. It was a particularly good look at the Culture's Minds (hyper-intelligent AIs, basically) and ships.

What I didn't love about the book was that the human characters felt almost unnecessary. Still recommended for fans of the Culture. Just read another one or two series books first.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOLLOW

This is a story about big events. The Excession of the title is a reference to the appearance of something so powerful in the galaxy that the Culture does not know how to respond; imagine the Aztecs spotting a nuclear powered aircraft carrier off their coast. So of course the ships and minds take charge. The human characters are sort of forced into the plot. ( )

76

Interesting, but not life changing. Anticlimactic, both war and love story. I was expecting more from the love story, at least. Cool ideas but somewhat disappointing. Weird that he spent chapters tying up *every* loose end. ( )

This is among the "weak" Culture books in my opinion, though it's still pretty impressive by any other standards. It doesn't seem as profound as Use of Weapons or as thrilling as Consider Phlebas, but it's better than Player of Games, for sure.

The story seems straightforward but it's anything but. It has one good twist and a couple of hit-and-miss ones. As in some of the other books, the complicated plot is there to support a very basic one that has to do with two people's feelings. So the human element doesn't get lost in the space opera, but here it seems kind of tacky compared to the much better use of this technique in "Use of Weapons". I tend to go back and compare Banks' books to each other just because none of the other sci-fi authors I read is comparable in techniques and scope (not better or worse, mind you, just very different).

In this one, the Culture is elaborated on a little bit further, and we learn a lot more about the 'Ship-Mind' Culture, which take the front seat instead of the usual human characters. It's an interesting recourse, and their personalities are well defined, so you don't miss having strong human characters to relate to. That's also the other side of this book's problem. The human characters seem so bland and stupid that one tends to skim a bit over their sections to get to the more interesting plot with the Ships and the Excession itself. Maybe this was also the author's intent, to shift away the focus from the humans and show their struggles as meaningless amidst a larger plot, but one in which they also play a big role nonetheless. It's an interesting juxtaposition.

I'll give this one a three for now. I may change my mind upon finishing the rest of the Culture books.


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