Inversions

Banks's stated intention with “Inversions” was to write a Culture novel that wasn't really a Culture novel. And indeed the words “The Culture” do not appear once in the text. To all intents and purposes this is the tale of two people living on a world under a binary sun; a world the equivalent of late medieval earth; a world of kings and empires and wars.

A prologue and epilogue frame the narrative, written by an older version of one of the characters, Oelph, assistant to a woman known only as the Doctor, who is physician to the King of Haspide. He situates the story after the fall of an Empire, which fell due to “rocks raining down from the sky”. The story is split into two strands of alternating chapters - one is excerpts from the journal of the Doctor, the other the tale of a bodyguard, DeWar, who guards the life of the Protector of Tassasen, a neighbouring land to Haspide. These two characters never meet. Indeed the narratives have few links besides being set at the same time during a war between Tassasen and the kingdom of Ladenscion. But it is inferred subtly that these two characters are not of this world, both being from distant lands and with back stories that are hard to verify.

The book's structure might put some people off, but Banks is a great writer and the world building is fantastic, so you can happily read this not having read any other Culture novel. But if you have read other Culture books you'll pick up on the subtle hints. The tale DeWar tells the Protector's son of the land of Lavishia, where you can do as you please; the mysterious escape from a torture chamber by the Doctor (did she use advanced technology?). It's inferred that these two are from the Culture, with one or both, perhaps, being Special Circumstances agents, but it is left up to the reader to decide.

Still one of my favourite Banks novels. Recommended.

Inversions is probably my second favorite culture novel after Use of Weapons; this book was subtle, atmospheric, and was so different from everything that came before that I almost can't believe it's in the same series. I took a detour from The Culture after the disappointment I got from Excession and I am delighted to say that this novel is the “inversion” of that book; every gripe I had with Excession, every missed mark or narrative flaw, is thankfully absent from this work.

Banks' continues to demonstrate his love of complex narrative vehicles, this time (mercifully) it's only a dual-narrative. Rather than a space/Culture setting this story is set on a backward (read: feudal/enlightenment era) planet and follows the King's doctor Vosill and the Protector's bodyguard DeWar. You would be excused for not even considering the book to be Sci-Fi or culture related as any connection this book has to the rest of the series is fairly subdued, mainly in the form of fairytales and casual conversation. I am tempted to say that this story can be read standalone because it definitely could be; but-for the ending, which does involve Culture/SC/Contact/Sci-Fi elements but does not explain them.

It was fulfilling to finally read a story set in the Culture that wasn't bouncing all over the place trying to cram as much (admittedly very cool and interesting) Sci-Fi-AI-overlord-black-hole galactic-war-warp-speed-ness down the reader's throat as is physically possible. Instead this a human story and is a work of character writing, love, court politics and intrigue. As always there is Banks' sardonic humor and dry wit. While the story is told from a third person perspective and is partially detached as is typical of many of the Culture novels thus far, unlike those prior stories we get a lot in the way of characterization and emotion because thankfully this time the speaker is a person and not a drone.

This book really takes a magnifying glass to the society of a world potentially subject to Contact, the arm of the culture that “contacts” and eventually incorporates existing civilizations into Culture space. Thematically this book is still 100% Culture; we are tackling the same questions of morality and intervention, this time from the bottom of the pyramid rather than the top down approach used in the other books. We see the underbelly of the world of the Culture, and this book doesn't shy away from darker subjects, particularly issues surrounding the treatment of women in war and the subject of rape.

I'm not sure what happened in the two year gap between Inversions and Excession but this time around Banks' stepped up his game; one of our characters is a woman! In fact the strongest characters in this book were Vosill and Perrund, the Protector's concubine. Perrund delivers a chilling monologue concerning her treatment at the hands of a conquering force that I thought was the most alive/true-to-life these novels have ever gotten. In fact the strength of these characters does a lot to highlight the moral questions posed concerning contact: if in fact a foreign but guiding hand would prevent the kind of horrors visited on Perrund and others like her, would that good outweigh the bad that comes with forced change or the elimination of a planet's right to self-determination and rule?

I can see why fans of the series might rank this entry towards the bottom; it all but forgoes the “sci” part of sci-fi in favor of telling a grounded and compelling story, and some fans might really just be here for the big ships and the snarky drones. Personally I think I overdosed on that stuff after reading Excession. Had I known that the aptly titled Inversions, really was an inversion of the genre I don't think I would have been so keen to take a break from the series.

TL;DR: This book is really good, the sci-fi meter is set on low simmer.

“Inversions” est le sixième tome du cycle de la Culture de Iain M. Banks, mais c'est un roman qui me semble un peu à part dans le cycle. La science-fiction y est très discrète, on pourrait presque croire lire un roman de fantasy classique.

Après avoir loué le rôle fondamental joué par les Intelligences Artificielles dans le récit dans “Excession”, le roman précédent du cycle, j'aurais pu être déçu par celui-ci, tant il pourrait apparaître comme son exact opposé. En effet, ce roman met en scène une planète où la civilisation et la technologie sont comparables à celles de l'Europe à la fin de l'ère médiévale.

Le livre alterne des chapitres mettant en scène deux narrateurs qui nous proposent de suivre deux personnages, une doctoresse et un garde du corps, chacun dans l'entourage d'un souverain différent sur le même continent. C'est une plongée dans deux vies de cour différentes, avec des souvenirs, des entourages et des régimes différents.

On finit par deviner, par des sous-entendus plus ou moins discrets, que ces deux personnages sont issus de la Culture, en “visite” sur cette planète qui n'a pas encore été contactée par la Culture. On retrouve ici un thème sous-jacent et récurrent dans le cycle : le “droit” d'ingérence et les dilemnes auxquels doit faire face une civilisation “avancée” quand elle en rencontre une autre “moins avancée”. Peut-elle intervenir pour provoquer des changements ? Doit-elle intervenir ? Sous quelles conditions ? Jusqu'où ? Et surtout, qui décide ce qui est “bon” et ce qui ne l'est pas, ce qui constitue un “progrès” pour une civilisation ?

J'ai beaucoup aimé ce roman. Ses deux récits pris au premier degré sont déjà captivants en soi, en plus d'être parfaitement écrits avec un travail intéressant sur le rôle des deux narrateurs, différents des personnages qu'ils accompagnent. Le livre prend encore une dimension supplémentaire quand on comprend comment, malgré les premières apparences déroutantes, il s'intègre parfaitement dans le cycle de la Culture avec ce thème récurrent du droit d'ingérence. J'ai donc envie de dire que ce roman est à la fois un chef d'oeuvre de fantasy et de science-fiction.