Iain M. Banks, Matter [Library of Babel]

The latest book by Iain M. Banks proudly proclaims itself to be a Culture novel-- part of a loosely connected series of novels and stories about humans living in a vast and utopian galactic civilization-- which makes its opening in a castles-and-kings milieu somewhat surprising. Well, all right, technically it opens with a prologue in which a woman called Djan Seriy Anaplian and her drone companion Turminder Xuss disrupt a medieval-level army with very little effort (she's an agent of the somewhat disreputable Special Circumstances, the group within the Culture that meddles in the affairs of other civilizations, and has been sent to stop a war). After that, though, it jumps to a wartime scene in which a prince named Ferbin witnesses his father's murder at the hands (literally) of his closest advisor. This is not exactly what you expect from a Culture novel, Inversions notwithstanding.

The two scenes are connected, however, as Djan Seriy Anaplian turns out the be Ferbin's sister, dowried off to the Culture in exchange for some technical advice. As Ferbin sets off in search of the Culture to get aid in avenging his father, Anaplian receives news of her father's death (not that it was a murder, just the he died in battle) and begins making her own way home. Meanwhile, their brother Oramen is left behind in the capital to deal with palace intrigue and the murderous advisor serving as Regent.

In the course of Ferbin's somewhat picaresque journey, it gradually becomes clear that he's not living in just any medievaloid kingdom. Ferbin's people, the Sarl, occupy the eighth level of the Shellworld called Sursamen, a hollow artificial planet consisting of many concentric shells, originally constructed millions of years earlier for a mysterious purpose by a now-vanished race called the Involucra (also called the Veil). Many Shellworlds were attacked and destroyed by another long-vanished race called the Iln, also for reasons unknown. With both Veil and Iln having departed the galactic stage, however, other enterprising races moved in, though colonizing Shellworlds was a risky business:

It remained unclear to this day whether the defence mechanisms had been left behind by the worlds' original builders or those who appeared to have dedicated their entire existence to the task of destroying the great artefacts, but whether it had been the Veil or the Iln-- or, as it was now generally agreed, both-- who had left this lethal legacy behind, the principal factor limiting the use of the Shellworlds as living spaces was simply the difficulty of making them safe.

Many people died developing the techniques by which a Shellworld might be so secured, and the same lessons generally had to be learned afresh by each competing civilisation, because the power and influence which accrued to a grouping capable of successful Shellworld exploitation meant that such techniques remained fiercely guarded secrets. It had taken an Altruist civilisation-- exasperated and appalled at such a selfish waste of life-- to come along, develop some of the techniques, steal others and broadcast the whole to everybody else.

They had, of course, been roundly vilified for such unsporting behaviour. Nevertheless, their actions and stance had, in time, been ratified and even rewarded by various galactic bodies, and the Culture, although far remote in time from these now-Sublimed people, had always claimed a sort of kinship by example with them.

I quote this bit (which is part of a seven-page infodump about the nature of Sursamen) because it's a good example of the style and tone of the infodumps, and the infodumps are really just about the most fun parts of this book. There are some pretty cool setpieces as well, but on the whole, the main attraction of Matter is the scenery, and the rambling, funny, and slightly snarky expository sections explaining all the new and unusual sights that Ferbin and Anaplian encounter in their travels.

Which is not to say that the other bits are bad-- they're not. Ferbin gets a little hard to take at times-- he starts out as a prime candidate for Upper-Class Twit of the Year-- and the sections from Oramen's point of view are a little frustrating, but the characters and their interactions are handled well enough to be easily readable. For the bulk of the book, though, the plot is mostly a travelogue, and the real pleasure of travelogues is not the company but the scenery.

While it seems ridiculously unlikely in the middle of the book, all of the infodumping does eventually become important, as the book comes to a dramatic conclusion that seems oddly rushed for a 600-page novel.

This isn't Banks at the very top of his game-- it's not going to displace Use of Weapons or Look to Windward as the best Culture novel out there-- but it's a very solid large-scale SF novel. Overall, it's probably in the middle of the pack-- not the best, but better than Consider Phlebas and probably Excession (though in some ways, Excession is the Culture novel it's closest to). It's a fine read, though.