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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. A fun read of intrigue: This is the first Ian M. Banks novel I read. I am confused why it is considered "SF"- the setting is supposedly on another planet with three moons and two suns (I think), but there's no "science". The setting is in a medieval like time in terms of technology and culture, and the story is about court intrigue and human-made suffering. After reading several of the amazon reviews here I feel maybe I missed something by not having read previous Banks novels, but still I enjoyed this book on its own. Other than the complications of the court intrigue, it is a very light read. I think it works best on the level of allegory as suggested by the stories within stories form. I was most interested in the "Doctor" character, particularly in the details which show her humanity and her sense of dignity. The sudden unexplained event which involves her toward the end of the novel works because of the depth of her character, and suggests a metaphysical level that is almost believable- Banks is clever enough to give the reader room to intuit its significance, while avoiding a deux ex machina ending by tying up the less subtle plot elements. Not a great book, but an entertaining read which convinces me to look at more of his novels.  iayork | Aug 9, 2009 |  This is unusual for Banks, it is a Fantasy novel, not science fiction. As you might expect from the title, it is about characters that turn things around, or that are not quite what you'd expect. It is really a collection of 3 short novels, but either as 3 separate or one long story, they are really excellent. I enjoyed this very much. (  ) Karlstar | May 28, 2009 | I'm a bit non plussed by this book. I did quite enjoy reading it once I got into it, and liked the mysterious, advanced and humane character of the doctor. But the 2 strands were a little too separate, and the number of named bit part players a bit too numerous (I kept forgetting who was who when I came back to it after a few days break). The impossible event in the torture room towards the end annoyed me - presumably we're supposed to fill in the gaps ourselves here from knowledge of The Culture and their capabilities from his other novels, but reading this one as a stand alone book it is just a random and unexplained event which makes no sense. So I have mixed feelings about it, and found myself vaguely unsatisfied by the ending. (  )2  Honto | Apr 10, 2009 | Not normally my cup of tea. But it is Iain M Banks. After 20 pages I was hooked. Humane. Suspenseful. Witty. ( ) m.a.harding | Feb 22, 2009 | A non-explicitly Culture novel. This is set on a low technology planet and setup tells us that it will be recounted in the style of an unnamed narrator. Or even more than one. A story of a Doctor, and a ruler's bodyguard. The former is a foreigner to the particular environment, and being your more feudal society a woman in a position of authority is looked upon askance. Obviously, being a Culture book she is a lot more foreign than being from another continent. Her problem is that she has become too involved with her mission, and the bodyguard's, too involved with the plotting around him. Call it 3.25. http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/01... ( ) bluetyson | Jan 25, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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| Book description |
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Iain M. Banks, the international bestselling author of The Player of Games and Consider Phlebas, is a true original, a literary visionary whose brilliant speculative fiction has transported us into worlds of unbounded imagination. Now, in his acclaimed new novel, Banks presents an engrossing portrait of an alien world, and of two very different people bound by a startling and mysterious secret.
On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy reports on the doings of one Dr. Vosill, who has mysteriously become the personal physician to the king despite being a foreigner and, even more unthinkably, a woman. Vosill has more enemies than she first realizes. But then she also has more remedies in hand than those who wish her ill can ever guess.
Elsewhere, in another palace across the mountains, a man named DeWar serves as chief bodyguard to the Protector General of Tassasen, a profession he describes as the business of "assassinating assassins." DeWar, too, has his enemies, but his foes strike more swiftly, and his means of combating them are more direct.
No one trusts the doctor, and the bodyguard trusts no one, but is there a hidden commonality linking their disparate histories? Spiraling around a central core of mystery, deceit, love, and betrayal. Inversions is a dazzling work of science fiction from a versatile and imaginative author writing at the height of his remarkable powers.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:20 -0400)
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