Transition

This one is pretty much a hybrid Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks where Sci-Fi meets twisted social dissection. Think The Bridge but not quite as good. It took me a few attempts to get into this, all the narrators and stories found me flicking back and forth to help me anchor myself. I don't think I ever fully “got” it but I did enjoy the ride. Expect some gratuitous sex and violence and recurrent confusion if you attempt it. Probably only suitable for Banks' aficionados, particularly those who drift further towards the M. side of his works.

Based on the cover blurb, I passed over this book many times before actually reading it. Thankfully the blurb doesn't really do it justice.

I would describe this novel as quintessential Iain Banks, and I mean that in a good way: the multiple, intertwining narratives; the examinations of (a)morality; the touch of transhumanism and associated thoughtfulness about what it actually means to be human. It has some science fictional elements, but (despite what my library thinks) is not a Culture book (unless – as is always a possibility – I missed an oblique reference somewhere that would place it within the same universe). It's essentially a spy thriller that makes use of the many-worlds interpretation, executed with Banks' typical cleverness, finesse, and finely-tuned sense of irony. On the whole, it's not the Banks novel that has moved me the most deeply, but I feel like it would be a pretty good starter book for someone not quite ready to commit to the Culture.

“Lying here, during all this time after my own small fall, it has become my conviction that things mean pretty much what we want them to mean. We'll pluck significance from the least consequential happenstance if it suits us and happily ignore the most flagrantly obvious symmetry between separate aspects of our lives if it threatens some cherished prejudice or cosily comforting belief; we are blindest to precisely whatever might be most illuminating.”

Transition is an intensely political novel. Not in the Katherine Kurtz Deryni sense, but in the sense that it was clearly written in reference to recent and ongoing real-world events. It's not subtle, but neither is it overbearing.

One of the benefits of reading (or, I can say, writing) dark fiction is that you can wake up from it with relief. Unfortunately, from the dark world of Transition, where torture and other terrible things happen, I woke to a real world where they also happen. It's a bit grim, and while the politics shouldn't put you off, the torture might - especially when you reflect that it's not just fiction - all these things are really happening. And that's from a guy who writes some dark stuff, and just finished writing a story about torture himself.

The story deals with a large cast of characters and multiple, often limited, or as the story itself points out, unreliable narrators. It takes quite some time to get a handle on what's going on, though I can reveal without spoilers that the core concept is that some people can move from their own minds into the minds of other people in alternate realities. There's a Circle organizing it all, and of course there are bad apples and power struggles (so there is some narrative politics as well).

As always with Banks, the writing is smooth. This time, however, the pieces just didn't add up to a compelling story for me. There are a number of thin or not terribly credible pieces, and a fairly substantial number of loose ends left hanging. The ending was pretty unsatisfactory.

I appreciate that Banks steered away from the Culture, which is wearing a bit thin, but this was not his best effort. True Banks fans probably already have this. If you're new to Banks or not a devotee, I suggest looking elswhere.