Excession by Iain M. Banks (Culture #5 )

 

The next book in the Culture series.

A strange object is discovered, something which absorbs all radiation and seems to be much older than the universe itself. It is possibly an “Excession,” something which will change everything permanently. It is a problem that "most civilizations would encounter just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop." There is a secret group of Minds – powerful AIs – who have been preparing for things like the “Interesting Times Gang,” which is connected to “Special Circumstances,” Culture's spying organization which is as military as anything in Culture can be. One ship of the “Interesting Times Gang,”, “Sleeper Service”, is asked to go to Excession; it is considered “Eccentric,” which means it has partly abandoned Culture and behaves in a personal way. That ship's mind asks for Genar-Hofoen, a Contact employer who has some common history with a human who has lived for years aboard the “Sleeper Service” to be transported to the ship.

One of the civilizations which have an interest in Excession is “Affront,” a civilization that has long irritated many major Minds of Culture for its moral failings – it tends to enjoy torturing other creatures and treats its women and children cruelly, even though as individuals they are often considered fun-loving. Some of the Minds have created a plan to make Affront attack Culture to cause a war which would eventually enable Culture to pacify the Affront society (Affront doesn’t really realize the nearly unlimited resources that Culture has. If a war starts, only one end is possible: Culture will win). What will happen?

The book concentrated much more on the Minds than on the humans. Much of the book is about the secret plotting of different factions, which is party told by terse email-like communications. There were more slow parts than in other parts of the series, and I didn’t find the plotting of the Minds too engaging. I believe this was the worst in the series so far; in spite of that, it was well worth reading it.    

464 pp

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

After presenting a nice idea to his boss, a man gets fired from a food delivery company. As there aren’t really any other jobs, he ends up as a delivery person for the same company. While making a delivery, he meets an old friend, who gives him a work offer: he is supposed to work with large animals. It turns out that the large animals are Kaiju, the giant beasts of Japanese monster movies, and work is situated on an alternative Earth filled with those monsters and other less-than-friendly things, too. The goal of the group is to study life there and prevent Kaiju from preaching the wall of realities – as they did in post-war Japan (causing the legends). And the Kaiju are run by biological nuclear power – and if they fall sick there is a very real chance of a nuclear detonation. But there are powerful rich people who want to exploit the Kaiju.

A very light book with a very strong “Young Adult” feel to it. The protagonist feels and speaks practically exactly like the main character in Scalzi’s first book, “The Agent to the Stars”. The style of writing is very light, punning, and referential – and not especially good and/or literate. It was the bubblegum style of book, giving moments of satisfaction but soon goes stale and doesn’t leave any lasting memories. I don’t really understand all the good reviews it has.

268 pp. 

John le Carré: Mies kylmästä ( The Spy Who Came in from the Cold)

 

Vakoilusta kertova kirja, tätä tyylilajia en juuri ole lukenutkaan pitkään aikaan. Alec Leamas on britti, joka on ollut vastuussa Berliinissa tapahtuvasta vakoilusta 50-60 -lukujen vaihteessa. Agentti, josta hän on ollut päävastuussa jää kiinni ja ammutaan hänen yrittäessään paeta Länsi-Berliinin puolelle. Vakoojan paljastumisen ja tappamisen takana on Itä-Saksan vakoilun pääkiho, Mundt. Alec kutsutaan takaisin Lontooseen hoitamaan hanttihommia. Hänen elämänsä vaikuttaa suistuvan raiteiltaan, viinaa menee liikaa, työt jäävät tekemättä, rahaakin hiukan katoaa. Potkujen jälkeen viinaa kuluu entistä enemmän ja työtä löytyy vain hanttihommista ja lopulta pahoinpitely ja vankilareissu vievät miehen ihan pohjille. Jolloin hyvin ystävälliseltä vaikuttava mies ottaa häneen yhteyttä ja tarjoaa tietä ulos tukalasta tilanteesta. Tarvitsisi vain kertoa yksityiskohtaisesti mitä hän tietää Brittien vakoiluorganisaatiosta… Eli nyt Leamasin tavoite on saavutettu - koko alamäki oli etukäteen suunniteltu ja tähtäimenä oli päästä itäpuolen vakoilusysteemiin sisään, tavoitteena suistaa Mundt tehtävistään. Mutta vakoilussa asioilla on tapana mutkistua, kuka loppujen lopuksi on huijaamassa ketä?      

Suhteellisen lakonisella, toteavalla suoralla tyylillä kirjoitettu kirja, joka on selkeä luettava, mutta jaksaa yllättää useaan kertaan. Kovin montaa kovin sympaattista hahmoa ei kirjassa ole, ja vähän kaikki joutuvan pohdiskelemaan tekojensa seurauksia. Oikeuttaako hyvä päämäärä epäeettiset teot? Ja jos ne oikeuttavat, niin missä on raja? Onko jokin raja? Hyvä ja mieleenjäävä kirja. 

A book about a former intelligence officer whose life has gone very wrong after a traumatic event. Alcohol, some embezzlement, poor jobs, and finally a prison sentence. Will he sell his secrets when the East German spies arrive? Or was it all a setup? And who was setting up who? An excellent book that is written in a clear, laconic style. Do ends justify the means? And to what kind of means are people prepared to go, and at what cost?

304 pp. 

Kari Häkämies: Kaksoiselämää

Poliitikon kirjoittama dekkari politiikassa tapahtuneesta murhasta. Persulainen sisäministeri oli vaaleissa pudonnut eduskunnasta ja luonnollisesti myös hallituksesta – reaalielämässä kun populistinen politikka ei ollut ihan yhtä mahdollista kuin vaalipuheissa. Hän on entinen poliisi, ja hänellä ei olisi ollut edessään muuta vaihtoehtoa, kuin työhön peruspoliisin työhön palaaminen. Hänet ja naispuolinen puolijulkkisasianajaja, johon hänellä ei ole edes mitään julkisesti tiedossa ollutta yhteyttä, löytyvät ammuttuina puistikosta. Onko kyseessä poliittinen murha? Vai liittyvätkö murhat yksityisiin asioihin? Ja kumman yksityiselämään? Ja mikä tapettujen keskinäinen suhde oli? Näissä kysymyksissä poliisilla sitten riittää selvitettävää. Tapaukseen liittyy paljon henkilöitä ja löytyy viitteitä siitä, että asialla olisi yhteys vanhoihin pankkikriisin yhteydessä tehtyihin huijauksiin ja välistävetoihin. 

Juonellisesti kyseessä oli ihan kohtalainen kirja, tosin henkilöiden hyvin suuri määrä hiukan oli sekoittavaa.  Mukana oli muutamia takaumia (ainakin alussa) tuntemattoman henkilön vankilakokemuksiin. Niiden merkitys jäi niukaksi, joko niitä olisi voinut olla enemmän ja suuremmalla merkityksellä, nyt ne tuntuivat lätsähtävän, eivätkä ne antaneet oikein mitään juonellista lisää romaaniin. Kielellisesti kerronta oli keskitasoista, mutta poliittisen taustan hyvä tunteminen teki kirjasta kuitenkin varsin kiinnostavan luettavan. 

The former minister of the Interior has been killed, along with a female attorney. The two apparently didn’t have any connections. The minister was a part of a populist party, and when the populism didn’t work very well in taking care of the daily affairs of the state, he didn’t get re-elected. He was supposed to start his old work as a lower-middle-level police officer, but he died first. What was the motivation for the murder? Was it political? Was it connected to the private life of one of the victims? And which one? Or was it something else? The solution ends up being pretty convoluted and old events during the financial crisis twenty years earlier might be part of the solution. Or are they? The author is a former politician and knows the political system exceptionally well, which gives a sense of authenticity. The cast of characters is vast and almost too much for my poor memory of names. The writing was average, not especially good but better than some famous writers in Finland.  

352 pp

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive #1)

In the first part of the series, The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson, the world outlined in the book is pretty complex, and even though this first part mostly sets up the background and introduces the characters, we don’t learn very much about it. The world was ravaged eons ago by something called Voidbringers. There was a group called the Knights Radiant who were able to beat the Voidbringers with magical armor and swords called Shardplate and Shardblade. The Knights Radiant left after the last battle against the Voidbringers and left those weapons, which are very coveted because their worth is practically incalculable. The weapons are able to repair themselves, and they can alter themselves to suit each user. The Shardblades are very much like the lightsabers from Star Wars except they don’t cut living beings; they just destroy the path they go through. (I was left wondering if they are actually magic; somehow, they felt a lot like very advanced nanotechnology.)

The world is ravaged by periodic, extremely powerful “highstorms” that always come from the eastern ocean. Because of them, the eastern parts of the world are very barren and all plants have adapted to high winds and are able to withdraw into the ground. Most of the animals are some sort of crustaceans. The highstorms also give power to gemstones, which are used as currency. When charged during a storm, they contain magical energy that may be tapped for several magical purposes, including transmutating stone to grains and other types of food.  

The book follows several different people. The most important is Kaladin, a slave who is forced to work by carrying bridges on battlefields. Bridge carriers are meant to die and to draw attention away from the real soldiers, but Kaladin survives run after run. He has one compulsion: he wants to save people and starts to plan how his bridge crew would have a better chance of survival. Slowly we learn his backstory through flashbacks.

Another character is Shallan. She belongs to a family that has severe financial and political trouble. She travels to become a student of a famed scholar who is a sister of the former king. She has an ulterior motive: she wants to steal the magical artifact the scholar has to help her family, but she finds that studying starts to seem more and more interesting – even more interesting than helping her family.

The third main viewpoints are from Danilar and Adolin Kholin. They are princes who take part in the war against the Parshendi, a race of creatures who are pretty similar to docile parshmen, who are widely used as slave-like laborers. The Parshendi apparently killed the king of the realm, and the war continues to be ongoing after that. The overall culture is very war-like, and men are supposed to be warriors. The women are scholars, and only they are allowed to learn to read and write.  

There are also a few other characters who play more minor roles. The most memorable of them is an assassin who hates killing people and hopes that one of his victims will manage to kill him, but he can't stop committing the murders, as he is magically compelled to do what his controller demands. At the same time, the same magic prevents him from committing suicide.  

All of this is just a rough sketch of the world. People grow and change during the book considerably, and much of the background is still very vague.  

There are some questions I would like answers to: why are the war people waging such a stupid war? Why are there several separate wars against one common enemy? (Well, some of the main characters have the same question… so we might learn the reason for that.) And how can the war go on for so long? There appears to be a lot of casualties. The population of the world doesn’t seem to be very high. How can the war and the lost men be supported for years and years?

The first half (or more) of the book felt more than a little slow. I found the parts describing the Kholin “brothers” to be the least interesting with a fairly boring scheme, and I found I was always waiting for the chapters with other characters; well, towards the end things changed a little, and there weren’t as many boring parts anymore. The writing was standard to Sanderson: adequate but not the best the fantasy genre has to offer, but it certainly is not among the worst, either. As a whole, it is a pretty good book, and I look forward to reading the next parts. The plot is finally about to start … and it took just a little over a thousand pages…

1124 pp.