Inversions (original 1998; edition 2007)

This is my favourite Culture novel...probably because it has the least amount of the Culture in it. The smarmy robots, superintelligent AI Minds, and laissez-faire posthumans are all cool and everything, but after you've hung out with them for a few volumes they get kinda same-y. Also, they never pick up the tab at bars. Something about money being barbaric I think.

With Inversions we get, um, an inversion I guess, of what Banks seems to normally do with his Culture stories. Huh. Neat how that worked out, isn't it? Anyway, we find ourselves on one of those non-Culture 'backwards' planets that of course the Culture wants to influence (for their own good, of course) and we are thus presented with two different focuses (or I guess foci) in point of view. One follows the exploits of a mysterious female doctor acting as aide and close confidante to the king of one of the major nations of the planet; the other follows the story of the bodyguard of the de facto Cromwellian despot of another as he in turn follows a philosophically different approach in his 'influence' of events. Both of them are, of course, really Culture agents ultimately trying to prove to the other one that their philosophy is the correct one, though of course none of this is particularly obvious unless you've: a) read other Culture novels and b) read between the lines for some of the less explicable events of the story.

I found both main characters to be compelling and, most of all, interesting in a way that Banks isn't always able to pull off. In addition the narrator of the doctor's story-line, her smitten young apprentice, is quite an interesting figure in himself who displays the paradoxical elements of devoted factotum and scheming spy in equal measure. I guess I like it when Banks is understated. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does it can be very compelling.

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Read this after reading his other Culture novels or else you will be confused.

Like some of his other works, this one also might make you rethink your morals. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2012/04/review-of-inversions-by-iain-m-banks.ht... ( )

If you hadn't read any of the other Culture novels, you wouldn't understand what was happening in "Inversions" at all, as it seems to be a fantasy novel about the bodyguard of the Protector of a land that is at a similar level to 16th/17th century Europe, and the female doctor who attends the King of a nearby country. The doctor's story is told by her assistant in the form of reports to his master who is getting him to spy on her, while the bodyguard's tale . . .

But when you know the ways of the Culture, it is clear that the unwitting narrators of the tales are actually describing a Special Circumstances mission, and that agents have been sent down to influence the behaviour of two of the more moderate and forward thinking rulers, and prevent them from coming to harm while they carry out their reforms. So you have a good idea what the 'dark bird' fleetingly seen by a distraught witness to the Duke of Walen's murder really is, and you don't believe for a minute that DeWar and Perrund die in the avalanche that so conveniently prevents their bodies from being recovered.

Loved it. It's a million times better than "Excession". ( )

Fantasy by Banks is secretly Space Opera.