Feersum Endjinn

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Each situation is introduced in turn, without resolution, then each resolution is presented one after another after another at which point the narrative curtain is lifted and the impact is demonstrated for us in the physical world. The combined effect, presented in series like this is breathtaking to read, and speaks to the courage and singular sense of purpose present in this character. It’s a fantastic moment. OK, I'm done. :) (To be honest, I have to admit to being mildly impressed with the author's ability to write that way: it takes a lot of concentration to intentionally mis-spell!)

Iain Banks, Feersum Endjinn - Review - THE MIDDLE SHELF - A Iain Banks, Feersum Endjinn - Review - THE MIDDLE SHELF - A

Readers who’ve read Russell Hoban’s classic post-apocalyptic tale Riddley Walker will find this literary technique familiar, and it will either draw you in over time or turn you off completely. He seems to be speaking in a Scottish (or North London?) accent, and it’s very distinctive and charming if you can understand it. Sometimes a book has so many incredible elements that it defies easy summary. Compound that with the fact that it shares themes with some of your favorite genre classics, and that it is written by the incredibly-talented Iain M. Banks, and you have the recipe for a very unique reading experience. As I read the story, I was forcibly reminded of some classic books in the genre, particularly Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars , Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker , Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast , and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash , Diamond Age , and Anathem .Count Alandre Sessine VII, a military commander who has been killed numerous times, most recently by assassination. He awakes in the Cryptosphere, having lost his eighth and final real-world life, and now has eight virtual lives (which rapidly dwindle) to discover who has been plotting against him and why. Anyway, this doesn't sound quite as strange as it actually is. The point of view for each chapter changes from character to character, and one young lad, Bascule, who turns out to be central to the plot is writing his experiences down in a journal. Turns out this fellow is somehow inherently unable to learn to spell. He 1/2 2 put down evryfing zactly as it sownds. If u fink reeding dis paragraf is iritating, tri reeding hole chaptirs uv it. Its hard on yor brane. & den, jist wen u fink ur geting thi hang uv it, he meets an uther charactir wif a lisp!! I'm not sure why I couldn't read the Bascule parts (Bascule is the storyteller in the phoneticly spelled parts of the book) - maybe it's because I usually read whole words and groups of words at once. I do not read them as sounds but as symbols.

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I happily skipped one major complaint of this novel by listening to the audiobook version with Peter Kenny. He's awesome. That's great all by itself. But the best part is breezing right past the creative spellings of words. You know. Like the title of this book. Weird, right? But it's just Fearsome Engine. :) I'm sure this would be fine for people who read Shakespeare or any number of novels including Mark Twain's, but it is dense and some people might get turned off.I’m gonna want the audio version. I had no idea there was one until your review. I love how Peter Kenny reads Banks. Reply But don't just think this is just a novel of ideas. The characters and the individual stories were all fascinating and funny and full of great reveals and twists. More than enough for three normal novels, even. :) Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June. Man, this book was hard to get through... about a third of it is written from the point of view of young Bascule, who uses an idiosyncratic orthography that is part cellphone text and l33tspeak, and part Charlie Gordon in his pre-savant phase. In its way, this is quite a sustained achievement, but having to sound out the narrative for those parts word by word does rather interrupt the flow. Bastule the Teller is the dyslexic narrator whose main job is to dive into the Cryptosphere and retrieve lost information, often by interrogating stored personalities that have been dormant for millennia. He is also on a mission to find his tiny ant friend Ergates, and also becomes entangled with various plots as he delves deeper into the virus-infected chaos regions of the Crypt.

Feersum Endjinn, Iain M. Banks – First Impressions Feersum Endjinn, Iain M. Banks – First Impressions

This isn't a bad book—I don't think Banks is capable of writing a bad book, from the evidence to date—and it does contain memorable lines, such as this one: "In my experience those who are most sincere are also the most morally suspect, as well as being incapable of producing or appreciating wit."The characters are some of the finest Banks as ever written, and if you have never read any book by him, let me tell you that there is some competition! Banks had a remarkable gift: he made us care about each and any of them by making them incredibly relatable and so very human, even those you slightly despise, even those whose actions seem at first completely incoherent. All of them seem as complex as any real person. In Feersum Endjinn, we see a variation on specific markers of Banks’ ideas around selfhood which he makes a core principle of the Culture: the ability for self to be stored in the Crypt for multiple (maximum seven) reincarnations; the ability to be reincarnated in the sex/gender/ethnicity of one’s choice (choice being conditional here, because the Crypt has its own agenda); the ability to split oneself off into the Crypt; the ability to share one’s self with those split-off selves via ‘implants’, which are more like the Culture’s genetic modifications and enhancements that you’re born with than actual things implanted, and which bear a striking resemblance to the Culture’s neural lace. Plus whatever else I’ve forgotten.

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It is also very much a scifi novel, with threats both galactic and virtual. The virtual (un)dead world also leads to remarkable creative ideas: the bird world, that creates an eerie sense of menace, the place the story takes place in, or the destiny of humanity in that far future. The book was well received and won a BSFA award in 1994, however I have only read it once and with great difficulty. I've no idea if this book is indicative of the rest of his oeuvre, but the best word I can come up with to describe "Feersum Endjinn" is "weird."And some various asides here: Culture bodies transitioning is across the full gamut of physiology. One of the less common, but still well-established trajectories was for a couple (or more) to both get pregnant by alternating sex and delaying gestation, then both continuing pregnancy together (this is one of the narratives in Excession). Some decide to find possibilities for selfhood outside male or female, some even decide to become different species. Incidentally, all these are in Excession, and to varying degrees in Feersum Endjinn. And while I’m aside-ing here, my current — at the time of writing — discomfort with words like sex, gender, identity, leaves me using selfhood as a useful generalisation. The sex/gender binary that still won’t die (see Anne Fausto-Sterling for this) and still proposes something like an immutable, biologic, essentialist sex, and separate, mutable, cultural, performative gender is as useful or factual as the flat Earth model, yet the false binary (like so many false binaries, such as mind-body) gives the believer the luxury of not having to fundamentally critique their methodology. It may be the currently out-of-favour term ‘sex-change’ is a whole lot more precise in describing what happens, even while pointing out the poverty of language on this subject. So, for the moment: sex/gender/identity are out; selfhood is in. Well I no that, thilly, tho u r As usual the future extrapolation and technologies are interesting and twisted, the characters are interesting, even the good guys, though the choral structure leaves some characterizations short. October 2004 Interview: Iain Banks". Archived from the original on 15 June 2011 . Retrieved 29 January 2009. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown ( link)