Look to windward I think is book in which Banks goes back to what he does best i.e. tell a engrossing story which has a lot of twists and turns. This time the story exclusively takes place on Masaq orbital and the descriptions of the orbital is another point which made this book really fascinating for me.Some of the strong points of the book for me where1.Masaq orbital.2.The varied species with their background story.3. Subliming concept.Let me elaborate on above points of the book1.Masaq orbital.Although throughout the culture series we have seen lot of orbitals, but they were lacking complete description in order to visualize them clearly. Banks gives detailed description of orbital in this book. The orbitals are basically circular objects which are millions of kilometer in diameter and they go about spinning around a star. It is their spinning motion around themselves, which basically provides gravity on their surface. On the surface of orbital we have plates which represent continents, and these plates are seperated from each other by thousands of kilometers. These plates are also different from each other in a sense that some may have arid deserts while other may have lush greenery on them. Masaq is one such orbital, and it is unique in a sense because it revolves around a star which will explode when it dies which will definitely cause harm on orbital too. The people living on Masaq are also adventure loving, as they sometimes go rowing in lava ya you read it right, or they modify themselves like birds so they can go flying around the orbital.As all orbital are basically managed by a hub mind, now a mind in culture is an AI who are a sort of sentient beings, they are not just your normals computers but they are so advanced that they are able to feel and observe more than a normal human mind is capable of. The minds are also have various personality traits which act as their identifiers.The hub mind of Masaq orbital is unique in a sense because it was previously an a GSV i.e. General systems vehicle mind, which are a sort of warships in culture. It also participated in the Idrian war and was responsible for the destruction of three orbitals. It has decided to commerate Battle of the Twin Novae where in the Idrian destroyed two stars in the war due to which there were mass casulties. As the light of destruction will be reaching the orbital, it asks a famous composer Ziller to present a symphony.2.The varied species with their background story.Now Ziller is a rebel himself he is a chelgrian, a species who have evolved from tigers. He has run away from his homeland Chel during the caste wars and has spent more than 10 years in exile on the orbital Masaq. He is a brilliant composer, but is petrubed by the fact that his homeland are sending an ambassador Major Quillan in order to convince him to come back to Chel as the war has ended.Ziller has completely gone in his shell, once he has heard the news about Quillan and refuses to present the symphony if the major is present any where hear the arena. The hub mind then takes help of Kabe who is an homondan a tripedal species who is an ambassador in culture in order to convince Ziller. The story progresses where in Kabe,Ziller and the hub mind, take various journeys across the orbital. They discuss various things from the background of Kabe who we come to know has come to orbital when his lover left him. We also learn regarding the history of hub mind during their discussions. Major Quillan is another strong character in this book, he is a broken man as he has lost his wife in the caste war, from that time onward he is desperately trying to find meaning of his life. When the war gets over and then Quillan comes to know that it was the Culture who were basically responsible for the caste war, at the same time he gets recruited on a mission which will finally lead him to redemption.3. Subliming concept.Subliming is a new concept introduced by Banks in this book, and it is fascinating due to the fact that a sublimed soul leaves the material plane altogether and only survives in form of pure energy.The chelgrians are unique due to the fact that subliming is not easy, because even culture is not able to do it, but it has been done only by a few AI minds in it, but the chelgrians have made it into a process due a device called as soul keeper, this device basically captures traits of of an individual when he dies. But when the chelgrians come to know that the people killed in the caste war have died because of war instigated not by themself but by a third party they stop the trapped souls of their fellow chelgrians from being sublimed. If Quillan's mission succeds he will be able to help these souls too.So with so much riding on his mission will the major succed in his mission? will Ziller ever go back to his homeland?. It is better to read the book in order to get the answers to these questions. All in all this book is an solid entry in the culture series. I give this book 4/5 stars.
I sort of have a problem with the main backstory premise to the book, this spoiler reveals a lot of stuff that's revealed slowly over the course of the book (view spoiler)[So the Culture is considered responsible for the caste civil war. They did this by influencing politics so a caste-ending politician became president, which led to a gradual but almost complete destruction of the caste system. Then the former lower castes just tried to kill the higher castes suddenly for some reason just at the moment the caste system was pretty nearly abolished. One of the members of the species suggests it was "natural" for it to happen because they're a "predator species". Yet it turns out that the two sides immediately make peace when it turns out the Culture had influenced things. The only reason the Culture are considered responsible for it is because they bribed parliamentarians to vote for this guy for president. The sudden civil war was entirely started by Chelgrians, apparently based on a sort of inevitability and their own plans. So like 1) In what way is it the culture's responsibility?2) Why is the ending of the caste system presented as inevitably resulting in terrible violence worse than the caste system itself?I don't want to be too like "well this doesn't follow my communist morality so it's bad" but it does feel like a very strange moral tale to have the oppressed become atrociously violent suddenly for no good reason and for it to be the wrong thing to have helped them at all. But even if we accept this, it seems strange to blame the Culture given that this was apparently something a significant amount of the population immediately took to. Although the Culture influenced things somewhat, apparently if the caste-enders had come to power "naturally" the same thing would have happened. If the politicians or even a decent amount of the population had a serious investment in the caste system they could easily have stopped things getting that far in the first place (although again that'd be bizarre, morally). So if there were no Culture intervention at all, either 1) the same thing would have happened, possibly over a longer timescale, given there seemed to be widespread agreement on what was done up until the war and no major pushback 2) the caste supporters would have objected, taken up a stronger position, and probably catalysed a civil war anyway which would probably have been just as bloody except with the oppressed castes in a far weaker position. Of course, this is me being silly to a certain extent. Obviously it's fiction, you have a certain set up, and it's not pushing a super simplistic "oppressed people are bad for resisting" thing exactly. It's an attempt to set up a decent moral dilemma, and obviously if it's a moral dilemma there's no starting position that will totally satisfy me because it's always going to be unpleasant in some way! I mean like as a general opponent of most "intervention" in a real life context it's kind of weird of me to be defending the Culture in the book, even if it's not really like real interventions - we "know" the Culture is far more "good" than any state in real life, even with the bad stuff it does sometimes. The Chelgrian intervention also had very little benefit to them - in real life the bad consequences are often down to continuing oppression to benefit those who intervened. But it's near impossible to create a close to real scenario in the Culture universe I think. I definitely appreciate the effort and think he did a great job - that I'm writing all these words about it is a good indication I think what he's written is worth thinking seriously about, heh. It's a pretty great thing to do to try and write a book about intervention like this - even if I don't think the premise is perfect to talk about the problems and consequences of "humanitarian intervention" even with seemingly "perfect" societies is good.Although I did feel the civil war was intended to evoke memories of the Rwandan genocide, which seems kind of dodgy? (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Look To Windward (2002)?
This is a book about mourning and regret, set in the universe of Banks's Culture series. There are several interwoven subplots, two of which display remarkable technical virtuosity. The first is a moving love story between completely non-human extraterrestrial creatures; I think it's the only successful example I've ever come across. Some of the flashbacks where Quilan recalls his lost love brought tears to my eyes. I'm not sure how the author did it, and I liked it enough that I'd rather not pick at the illusion. I was also impressed with the companion thread about the Mind, and its terrible feelings of guilt for the things it has done during the Idiran war 800 years earlier; without apparent effort, Banks succeeds in making the reader empathize strongly with a disembodied, superintelligent, artificial intelligence. These two themes eventually link up in a satisfying way, to create a powerful ending.If the rest of the book had come out equally well, it would have been a masterpiece. From what I have seen in interviews, Banks used to do a lot of rewriting at the beginning of his career. I think he said somewhere that he completely rewrote Use of Weapons after a first draft that he was very dissatisfied with, and the final result is indeed one of his best books. Unfortunately, by the time he reached Look to Windward, he had a loyal fan base who would buy anything he published, and I suppose he didn't feel as motivated any more. A pity.
—Manny
this review just reminded me,I recently recommend leviathan wakes, one small issue I had was the audible narrator doesn't attempt any voices or accents for the different characters. it doesn't really diminish the experience but makes you realise how much someone like Peter Kenny brings to the party.
—Luke Burrage
Say hello to Kabe (pronounced Ka - beh), a tripedal, three-and-a-half meter tall triangular bulk of politely plodding philosophical awesomeness, who can stand so perfectly still while lost in thought that silly humans often mistake him for some sort of humongous, statuesque work of art. Also, mistakenly, even though he’s a Homondon (a vegetarian species), Kabe’s very large mouth makes the sight of him eating distinctly alarming. These outwardly endearing qualities are hardly the extent of adorableness that is Ambassador Kabe Ischloear. Here’s an excerpt of him traipsing through the snow:He could hear his own footsteps as they sank into the untouched whiteness. Each step made a creaking noise. […]He looked back at his tracks in the sow covering the canal path. Three lines of footprints. He wondered what a human – what any bipedal – would make of such a trail. Probably, he suspected, they would not notice. Even if they did, they would just ask and instantly be told […]Ah, so little mystery these days. Kabe looked around, then quickly did a little hopping, shuffling dance, executing the steps with a delicacy belying his bulk and weight. He glanced about again, and was glad to have, apparently, escaped observation. He studied the pattern his dance had left in the snow. That was better… But what had he been thinking of? The snow, and its silence. Yes, Kabe is hilarious. He spends pages locked in philosophical debate with Ziller (a cantankerous misanthrope and composer living in exile on a Culture Orbital – which is a ring-shaped world with the surface and continents of a planet, a bit like Halo), and Kabe listens, pondering his surroundings with a prodigious sense of humor. This is the first Culture novel that I gave five stars, since I was never bored.Look to Windward is a deeply philosophical book. At one point, Hub, the sentience directing the Culture Orbital and its surrounding Solar System where a lot of the action plays out, explains what it’s like to be a Mind, an AI a trillion times cleverer than we; the perspective of death, of responsibility, of shame and kindness and other concepts that result from that small foray into the depths of every sentient soul… This book deals with suicide, bereavement, and religious rationalization of mass violence; with the mores of life in a technologically unlimited anarchist utopia. And oh, does it succeed, and more. One thing, I got through almost half the novel before I realized how totally awesome it was, and went back to re-read many parts a second time with a much deeper appreciation for the characters and subtle waves below the surface.The ending is pretty much amazing. Read this now, or next time you’re in a deeply philosophical mood.
—Simeon
