The Algebraist…

…is the title of a science fiction book by Iain M. Banks. I’ve just managed to get around to reading it and finished it today. Banks did not disappoint.

 

This is big, glorious space opera – hard SF that nonetheless is written by someone who understands human foibles only too well. So it’s not just flashy machines and mind-blowing ideas, it’s also about the things that we do that have impact on others; about power that corrupts, societies that revolve around the most pointless of things, and about religion that dulls the mind (the "Truth"). It’s also full of memorable characters – mostly non-human. And it’s about a journey taken by one human – a complete circle from a quiet conversation in a garden to a similar, and yet utterly different, conversation in the same garden between the same two characters – but between these conversations, the universe has changed, and a new set of possibilities have arisen. In his control of the science, and his command of truly outrageous ideas and visions (an alien society living in the atmosphere of a gas-giant planet similar to Jupiter), Banks reminds me of John Varley. Where I think he goes beyond Varley is the fact that he is a political writer. The political voice of his alter ego, which is given full reign in novels set in our world, such as Dead Air and Complicity, is present in this SF book. Gas-giant planets or Margaret Thatcher, Banks’ voice is very much one that deals with politics, and its impact on people. His voice is the stronger for it.