Matter

By Iain M. Banks

Hardcover: 593 pages
Publisher: Orbit/Hachette Book Group USA
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-316-00536-4

Plot Summary:

A very long time ago an alien race known as the Involucra (or sometimes the Veil) created over two thousand great devices spaced evenly around the galaxy. Each device was apparently intended to operate as some form of shield generator when fully completed, with the combined network of devices creating a barrier that would enclose the galaxy. Why the Involucra wanted to do this, whether or not they were ever successful, or what ultimately happened to them (they disappeared long ago, you see) is all lost to history. So are most of the great devices, eventually known as Shellworlds due to their multi-level nature. Time, history, and deliberate action by an ancient enemy (itself also long vanished) has reduced the number of such constructs in the galaxy by about half, while galactic drift has long ago shifted them far from their original positions. But the shellworlds themselves are far from dead.

Over millions of years, various races have figured out how to locate and modify derelict shellworlds, turning them into multi-level habitat megastructures able to support a host of internal environments and sometimes a host of different races. In the current era, one race that is particularly good at this sort of thing is the Oct, who not only modified the shellworld of Sursamen to make it habitable to various races, but also brought humans there to live on two of the constructs sixteen levels. The Oct are a prideful species, forever claiming that they are the inheritors of the Involucra’s legacy (whatever that might be). The rest of the galaxy, for its part, largely takes this sort of posturing with an indulgent keg of salt and goes on about its business. The Oct are really rather small potatoes, you see. Certainly, they are good at opening up shellworlds, but they are not yet in the same league as even the mid-level Involved species such as their patrons, the Nariscene, let alone the great powers of the galaxy such as the Morthenveld (mentors to the Nariscene) , or the Culture. And thus our story begins.

The great king, Hausk, has spent his life conquering the Eighth level of the world (which he and his people live upon) and is on the verge of conquering the Ninth when he is grievously wounded in battle. A grievous wound becomes a fatal one when his long time friend and most trusted advisor, Mertis tyl Loesp turns out to be a betrayer and the leader of a plot to overthrow the king and take over the kingdom. Tyl Loesp plans to first rule in the guise of Regent to the king’s youngest son, Oramen, although it is clear from the beginning that the young prince won’t live to actually take the throne.

However, unknown to tyl Loesp and the other traitors, the regicide and discussion of the plot to kill Oramen is all witnessed by the king’s rather foppish second son, Ferbin who is hiding in the building where the killing and plot explanation is carried out (Ferbin is not really a military type you see (that was to be his late older brothers role), and when a near miss killed his retinue and spooked his mount into running away he was quite content to take some time to hide and gather his wits about him again).

Outraged by the killing of his father and betrayal of his family, Ferbin vows vengeance. At the same time he has no illusions about his chances against the conspirators if he goes up against them alone. In desperation he decides to try to reach his sister, Djan, who lives in the alien empire known as the Culture. Acquiring the services of a loyal (but by no means subservient) retainer, Ferbin sets off for the surface of Sursamen and the galaxy beyond to find his long lost sister.

Next, we learn of Oramen, the youngest of King Hausk’s sons. Never intended to ascend the throne, Oramen is very much a bookworm and quiet intellectual type. Nevertheless he knows his duty to lineage and country and sets out to do the best he can to be first Prince Regent and then King, assisted of course by his family’s loyal friend and advisor, Mertis tyl Loesp. He wonders briefly if there is any way to get word of their family’s great tragedy to his long lost sister, Djan.

Jump now to the life of Djan Seriy Anaplian, who has lived in the Culture since she was a young girl. Sent out into the Culture and the wider galaxy by her royal father, who had no use for a female child, she has thrived within Culture society and risen to become a member of Special Circumstances, the Culture’s covert operations and general dirty tricks division. Working with a drone partner, Djan seeks to gradually manipulate the development of various primitive cultures until they can be brought up to a civilized standard of technology and behavior. The job is challenging, complicated, and sometimes dangerous, and Djan loves it. She is therefore in something of an ambiguous position when she learns that her father, the king of the Eighth level of Sursamen, has died in battle along with one of her brothers. She has not seen her family in years and never really expected to ever see them again. Nevertheless she sets out to return to Sursamen to pay her respects. And now the story gets interesting.

OA Relevance: Moderate

The complexity and sheer scale of the story fit well within the OA ethos. At the same time, much of the story has to do with alien races or semi-medieval court intrigue, neither of which may seem to have direct relevance to the OA universe. The humans of Sursamen might be characterized as low tech by almost any standard, yet they know about the nature of their world, alien races, and the general nature of the galaxy at large. The alien civilizations that are mainly dealt with (the Culture really plays something of a bit part here) are very old and vastly powerful and the megastructures described might be the envy of even the Mutual Progress Association. But a direct connection to OA is hard to find. I felt more of a sense of Brin’s Uplift Universe with its great age and older races mentoring younger ones. Although, Bank’s treatment stands all on its own.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

In his more recent Culture novels, Banks seems to be exploring different aspects of his fictional universe, and Matter is no exception. This time we are seeing something of the galaxy beyond the Culture, both the other advanced civilizations which the Culture interacts with (a sub-sub plot is that relations between the Culture and the Morthenveld are at a rather delicate juncture) and some lower tech cultures that have a very different relationship with galactic civilization than anything Banks has described before.

One thing that really stands out with this work is its sheer complexity. Banks has at least three, and sometimes as many as five, plots going at once throughout the book and while he keeps masterful control over them all, the reader is going to have to stay on their toes for the duration to keep track of everything that is going on. Speaking of complexity, in an earlier review of Banks book The Algebraist I had made the complaint that it felt like the book sometimes lost control of its own complexity and simply buried itself in info-dumps and detail. Something of that same level of detail pops up here, but this time the control never wavers. Banks is taking us to a very definite place and every bit of information he drops is going to end up having relevance before the story is over. However, if your memory for detail is not the best, you may want to take notes.

Perhaps the only complaint I could make about the book was that the ending, while it makes perfect sense, was not entirely satisfying. Not badly done, just somewhat off-putting in comparison to most story endings and the way that most of the Culture novels wrap things up all nice and neat by the last page. That doesn’t happen here and I was left with a small sense of “Hey! Wait a minute! You have to tell me how it all ends!” Banks does actually, just not in the way we are used to. Oh, and you really, really need to read to the very last page to get everything out of the story.

Overall Rating: Excellent

If you want to see a whole other facet of the Culture universe, you want to buy this book. Just don’t expect anything quite like what you’ve read in the Culture series before.

More about the reviewer, Todd Drashner, here.