The Hydrogen Sonata

So. We arrive at Iain Banks's last SF novel, his last Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata. I'm pleased to say that, after the last two novels, Matter and Surface Detail, where the Culture seemed a peripheral presence, this is a return to the rip-roaring space opera of Consider Phlebas or Excession. And while it's not quite in that league it is a fine and fitting last journey with the Culture and it's idiosyncratic Ships.

The plot is the usual Banksian conundrum with alien civilizations (in this case the soon-to-Sublime Gzilt), a mysterious, millennia old citizen of the Culture and a deep, dark secret that may, or may not, have consequences for the Gzilt. It's a sprawling book with many interweaving plot strands, but the prose, as ever with Banks, is fluid, witty and easy to read.

The joy for me is the presence of a plethora of Culture ships, with suitably strange names. Not since Excession has a Culture novel featured so many ships, I think, and indeed the events of that earlier novel are referenced here.

The sadness is that this, with Banks's death, is the last Culture story. He, and they, will be missed.

“So basically you're sticking around to watch us all fuck up ?”
“Yes. It's one of life's few guaranteed constants.”

I feel like I've summited Everest, one of my reading goals for the year was to finish the Culture series and it feels bittersweet. The Hydrogen Sonata is the last book in the series and it's quite fitting despite not being the planned conclusion for the series. Reading through this book I got the sense that this was something Banks wrote on or near his death bed, but that is not the case. It was after the publication of this book in 2012 that Iain Banks was diagnosed with gall bladder cancer, his condition rapidly deteriorated and he died in June 2013. It's fitting then (almost serendipitous) that this book is about the end of a civilization.

The story is centered around the Gzilt, one of the oldest civilizations in the galaxy, who are on the verge of performing the Sublimation, a mysterious process that would elevate them to a higher level of existence beyond the physical world. However, just before they can undergo the Sublimation, a question arises about the authenticity of their sacred text, the “Book of Truth,” and a Gzilt citizen, Vyr Cossant, is forced by circumstance to set out to uncover the truth. The “truth” just so happens to rest in the hands of the Culture's oldest citizen, the man who lives forever, Ngaroe QiRia.

Banks is revisiting and expanding on Sublimation, the transference of an entire civilization from the physical realm to a high-energy quantum state bordering on non-existence. Other authors may have struggled to describe just what exactly is going on but as usual Banks' writing style is engaging and immersive, and his world-building is unparalleled.

This story was a little different to read given the real life context around the book, I was reading this as the end of the series as opposed to contemporary readers treating it as just another entry. The themes on offer, the nature of existence, the value of tradition, and the limits of knowledge served to enhance the fatalist tone of the book for me. It was a real shock to learn that this was not in fact written on his death bed, I though for sure that the time-to (The Gzilt timekeeping devices that have replaced conventional watches, they instead tell the time-to sublimation day) concept was meant to parallel a cancer diagnosis-three months left to live.

I am happy to be at the end of the series, but I am sad that there will never be more. This was not my favorite culture novel but The Hydrogen Sonata is a must-read for fans of science fiction and the Culture series. It is a thoughtful and entertaining novel that showcases Banks' skill as a writer and his ability to create a rich and fascinating universe. That it serves as an appropriate capstone to the series is just one of life's small but appropriate coincidences.