Just Finished Reading: The Algebraist by Iain M Banks

Two thousand years in the future humanity is a (very) small part of a galaxy spanning civilisation billions of years older than the Earth itself. The galaxy is (heavily) populated with thousands of strange alien species whose knowledge and technology is far beyond our own, indeed so advanced as to be simply incomprehensible. One of the oldest – if you believe them – are gas-giant dwellers predictably called The Dwellers. Known for their strange ways, strange sense of humour and even stranger filing systems they are courted by groups of investigators who desperately try to glean information from their chaotic libraries full of ancient knowledge. Unknown to Fassin Taak he has already stumbled upon quite possibly the most important piece of information in history – a cipher responsible for revealing the location of millions of wormholes capable of transporting ships across vast distances in seconds. After news of the discovery leaks out, Fassin is ordered to return to the Dweller world of Nasqueron to secure the cipher. But even as he begins his journey a Tyrants massive invasion fleet is already on route to secure the source of galactic power for himself.

I just have to say this first to get it out of the way. Iain M Banks ROCKS! The man who invented The Culture can do little wrong as far as I am concerned and most certainly lived up to his reputation with this majestic work. I haven’t read any real space-opera for sometime and I now realise my loss. This book is on a truly enormous scale – both in time and space. We are talking 15 Billion years and the entire galaxy as the author’s playground – and play he does. His characters are universally gobsmackingly wonderful. His aliens (whilst often being very alien) are sympathetic, understandable, funny, and more often than not loveable. He has an amazing capacity to create instantly unforgettable people, places, ideas and….. Well, you get the picture. I only had one (minor) gripe with this book in that the initial quest for the cipher went on a bit too long for me and I started to get a bit impatient with it all. The final section, however, more than made up for this – in spades. I loved the amazing space battles, brief though they often were, I loved the weirdness of the aliens, I loved the AI’s (a recurring theme in Bank’s work), I loved the sheer madness of the Tyrant, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. Not his best but pretty damned close. Enjoy.