Against A Dark Background (1993) - Plot & Excerpts
"Regret is for humans," it said.—p.4671993's Against a Dark Background is a good, fat book—possibly the longest single work in Banks' science-fictional oeuvre, and one of the earlier novels credited to Banks-with-the-M. The particular copy I read came to me much more recently, though, from a Little Free Library kiosk very close to my house, and I'm kind of glad I came across this one only after having read a fair number of other Iain M. Banks novels. There's a lot going on here, and while this is one of only a few SF novels to stand outside Banks' Culture series, my familiarity with his style, his way of thinking about the universe, still helped me keep things straight.Golter is the cultural center of an isolated planetary system which is approaching its ten-thousandth year since human colonization. Ten thousand years is enough time for a lot of history to be made—and forgotten—time enough for a wealth of strange societal twists to develop, though apparently not nearly enough time for human nature to change.The Lady Sharrow is enough of an aristocrat that she has only one name. In the Golterian system, just as on Earth, that status opens a lot of doors. She's also a master criminal—or at least the priesthood of Huhsz think so, and they're a hard bunch to argue with. And if Sharrow and her team of personality-attuned soldiers, synchroneurobonded veterans of the Five Percent War, don't track down the last Lazy Gun (a task for which Sharrow will first need to find an arcane tome called the Universal Principles, for which she'll need her half-sister Breyguhn's help—and Breyguhn's stuck in the creepily monastic Sea House), then the Huhsz will be all too happy to kill the illustrious Lady Sharrow, aristocrat or not, as well as everyone around her.Confused yet? Don't be. While it's well-nigh impossible for me to synopsize everything that's going on in Against a Dark Background in any meaningful way, the late Iain M. Banks did do a fine job of introducing, explaining and juggling his multiple MacGuffins, including (but not limited to) the aforementioned secret book and that Lazy Gun—an incredibly powerful device which (following Chekhov's maxim) does get found, and used (though not nearly enough for my taste, given the unique way it operates) before the end of the book.So Sharrow's chasing the book that'll lead her to the Gun, and the Huhsz are chasing Sharrow. All this chasing gives Banks ample opportunity to show us many different corners of the Golterian system, both on and off the planet Golter itself. And, of course, to lead us through lots and lots of delicious action—chase scenes, tense standoffs, abrupt reversals and the occasional shootout. This is Banks' most thrilling work—or, at least, his most thriller-like.It's no spoiler to say that the Lady Sharrow both does and does not survive her quest. It's no spoiler to say that the journey ends up being worthwhile, either. As with Banks' later, more widely-known novels, the extraordinary vividness and detail of his worldbuilding in Against a Dark Background are captivating.
"Banks ain't kidding. He warned you up front this is a dark novel."- Norman Spinrad I generally don't pay much attention to those back cover blurbs praising (or in the memorable case of Banks' The Wasp Factory, decrying) a book I'm reading, but this quote really stuck with me after reading Against a Dark Background. While I wouldn't necessarily call it darker than, say, Consider Phlebas, the dramatic shifts in tone Banks takes you through in this book were for me truly disarming. It's a book that begins like a light-hearted sci-fi actioner (albeit salted with darkness from the memorable prologue onward) and ends in a nihilistic explosion of death, loss, and recrimination. Imagine the novel equivalent of a film that begins like Star Wars and ends like Reservoir Dogs and you'll have some idea of the tonal shift I'm talking about.If this sounds like a hot mess, don't be fooled: by building up Sharrow's past history in flashbacks sprinkled throughout the "front story", Banks prepares you to understand the degree to which her past is driving everything that happens in the present. I found Sharrow to be the kind of protagonist you sympathize with yet dislike at the same time, and Banks does an excellent job of bringing her contradictions out in high relief throughout the novel. Some other reviewers have described her as a Mary Sue, but I have to disagree: in my opinion, a Mary Sue is a character who is not only good at everything but also has everything work out swimmingly for her in the end. Sharrow may be good at many things, but she certainly has her human deficiencies… and more to the point, she experiences loss and grief at a level that I don't think any writer viewing their character through rose-colored Mary Sue glasses would have the *ahem* spine to put her through. A dark novel? Oh yes--like dark chocolate: rich, heavy, and leaves a lingering taste long after it's finished.
What do You think about Against A Dark Background (1993)?
This is easily my least favorite Banks novel, and the only one I seriously considered not finishing. There's a lot here to like, which is why it gets two stars and not one. But the good stuff is spread pretty thin, and on the balance it was just plain hard to read. Not "challenging," not "narratively dense," but hard to read. This book has a lot of problems from a formal perspective.First and foremost, it's an action novel with frustratingly opaque descriptions of the action. It reminded me of Consider Phlebas in that regard. I often had difficulty tracking what was physically happening in the fast-moving scenes, who was dead or injured, what various bursts of cerise light portended.Secondly, the narrative structure is schizophrenic. Banks relates the present-day timeline interleaved with the protagonist's back story, often in chunks of about four paragraphs. Entire chapters take this form, switching back and forth between past and present. It was often the case that I would read the first paragraph of such a section and still not know which timeline I was inhabiting. I'm sure there are people who would find such stroboscopic story telling to their liking, but it really put me off. Banks has experimented with non-linear stories to better effect before, such as in Use of Weapons, so I'll consider this an outlier.Even worse, Banks will spend entire sections of the novel enigmatically referring to some technology or concept of the book's world -- characters will have conversations that allude to it without indicating what it is -- before abruptly throwing in the towel and spending a few pages of perspective-free exposition simply telling the reader what he's been teasing us with this whole time.The world of Dark Background is deep and interesting, with a half-fallen technologically mature civilization sifting through the junk heaps of their ancestors looking for seemingly magic devices. No one in the novel understands how such tech works, so you won't either, but some of it is still pretty neat. But the real stars of the novel are the various cities, planets, governments and cults that comprise the Golter system. In this, I'm again reminded of Consider Phlebas. Also like that first Culture novel, Dark Background's plot comprises a series of high-stake heists and covert missions. It's a shame that it feels like such a slog for much of its length.
—Zach
The year is nearly 10,000, although not AD; the starting point is the planet Miykenns in the Golterian System. The Lady Sharrow, last-but-one of the minor noble Dascen house, is being hunted - legally - by the Huhsz, an order of religious zealots. if she is to survive, and get her half sister Breyghun released from captivity, she has to obtain the last remaining "Lazy Gun", an immensely powerful yet enigmatic weapon with a perverse sense of humour, and deliver it to the Sad Brothers of the Kept
—Peter Auber
Nah, the Culture novels aren't in order. I actually read Surface Detail after Consider Phlebas. Player of Games was also memorable. Use of Weapons, etc, are all great. I think what Iain M. Banks does best is infect you with ideas... Surface Detail had so many moral quandaries, and first-person perspectives; each scenario carefully orchestrated for maximum effect. It's the sort of book that's difficult to read, difficult not to read, and impossible to forget.
—Simeon
