The Algebraist [Hardcover]

We have a delightfully evil boo-hiss villain in Luseferous, who has a particularly inventive mind when it comes to devising methods of extreme torture. We have a sumptuously observed exotic alien species in the Dwellers; near-as-damn-it immortal, this arrogant, hedonistic race can switch from an irritating blasé aloofness to endearing earthy (or Nasqueron-y perhaps?) humour at the drop of a hub-kilt. We have a cunningly evolving plot with machiavellian twists, double and triple-crosses, sacrifice, redemption, heroism, further insights into the machine soul (a theme explored oft-times before by Banks), shocks, thrills, many laughs, a little sodomy, battles on an unimaginable scale and enough technical minutia to keep the geekiest of sci-fi addicts more than happy.

The sheer humanity and ordinariness of the hero - Fassin Taak, means he strikes a chord with all of us and we can empathise with his experiences throughout the story, whether he be reliving the tragedy in the derelict spacecraft, gulping the chill of gill-fluid in preparation for his "delve", or merely strolling through his garden with the vast bulk of the gas-giant filling the sky above him.

The measured pace of The Algebraist perhaps delivers /slightly/ less visceral thrills and visionary wonder than the pure genius of Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons or Look to Windward, but it certainly won't disappoint the faithful and just might turn new readers onto Britain's best living sci-fi author.

The elegiac epilogue was genuinely profound and moving, and rang faint echoes of Voltaire's Candide - "Il faut cultiver notre jardin".

I am so glad I did take that chance with this book; indeed it has prompted me to read further sci-fi from Iain M Banks, and the other titles so far have been well worth the effort.

This is not an easy book to read; it is disjointed, with flashbacks and plots introduced gradually through brief teasers. It is lengthy prose with sentences that I found myself re-reading to ensure I'd absorbed the information. But it is a highly rewarding read, with an epic scale, fantastic imagination and a touching humanity (if humanity can be used to describe some of the portrayals of the frequently alien protagonists!).

There is an easy wit, the characters are thoroughly brought to life, and there are many plot twists. It took me quite a long time to read, but I felt thoroughly rewarded for doing so. To me, this type of book is what grand-scale science-fiction is what it all should be about - literate prose, argument and humour; complex but clearly developed and explained plot; wild but credible imagination; and a true sense of vision anchored by well-rounded characters.

I have seen more negative reviews and I can appreciate that this book is not necessarily for all tastes, but it certainly pushed all the right buttons for me.

The first third of the book takes a bit of work - there's a lot of setting up to be done, and Banks doesn't do it chronologically - but it's rewarding, enriches the experience of the "Quick" societies and the characterisation of the hero, and increases the ancipation of meeting the Dwellers. There's also a subtle bit of political misdirection going on - the Archimandrite Luseferous is, as other reviewers point out, a moustache-twirling pantomime psycho, and it's easy to identify him as the "villain" and root for the Mercatoria by default, but as the details build up we can see the Mercatoria aren't a particularly savoury bunch either, and feel the hero's moral confusion: we work out the rights and wrongs more or less as Fassin, an aristocratic academic with a fairly naive sense of idealism, does.

A minor let-down is when we finally meet the Dwellers. Like the movie version of the Ents from Lord of the Rings, I was expecting something more alien from a species who lives on a vastly different time-scale to humans. Instead we get something akin to the fairies of fantasy novels like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - charming, capricious, unpredictable, very old and very powerful - but a mirror to humanity rather than something other. Having said that, the Dwellers we get are a lot of fun, and the reactions to them of the well-meaning but ignorant and conventional Colonel Hatherence are often very funny.

Plot? The plot's a MacGuffin. The climactic revelation of the secret Fassin is looking for was, I thought, fairly obvious, but who cares? It's an excuse for Banks to show us a fascinating invented world, amuse us and make us think. Thoroughly enjoyed.