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Feersum Endjinn
 
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Feersum Endjinn (Paperback)

by Iain M. Banks (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Feersum Endjinn + The State of the Art + Look to Windward
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Product details

  • Paperback: 279 pages
  • Publisher: Orbit; New edition edition (8 Jun 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1857232739
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857232738
  • Product Dimensions: 19.5 x 12.6 x 2.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 6,815 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #8 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Banks, Iain M.
    #9 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Banks, Iain

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
In a future where the ancients have long since departed Earth for the stars, those left behind live complacent lives filled with technological marvels they no longer understand. Then a cosmic threat known as the Encroachment begins a devastating ice age on Earth, and it sets in motion a series of events that will bring together a cast of original characters who must struggle through war, political intrigues and age-old mysteries to save the world. (B 4worned, 1 oph Banx' carrokters theenx en funetic inglish, which makes for some tough reading but also some innovative prose.)

Review
'Dazzlingly original' Daily Mail, 'An exquisitely riotous tour de force of the imagination which writes its own rules simply for the pleasure of breaking them' Time Out, 'Banks is a phenomenon: the wildly successful, fearlessly creative author of brilliant and disturbing non-genre novels, he's equally at home writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance' William Gibson, 'Sharp, witty, comprehensively terrifying' Observer

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Customer Reviews

42 Reviews
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (42 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars ... Indistinguishable from magic, 23 Mar 2004
In Arthur C. Clarke's famous saying, any sufficiently advanced technology is...

This book tells a tale of a time when the Earth is populated by descendants of those people who were (or chose to be) left behind when technology reached a point which they could no longer cope with. As a result they live in a world which they barely understand, surrounded by the legacy of people using a science way beyond them. Nonetheless, humans being adaptable creatures, they have created a society which just about functions, using the technology they were left, packed with all the usual human virtues and vices, lacking only the faintest idea of why they are where they are. It is only when they discover that their civilisation - and indeed planet - is threatened by something far beyond their abilities that they have to come to terms with what they have lost. Characteristically, they respond in different ways, most of them counterproductive.

The book is told from four viewpoints: a power struggle within the ruling clan, a loser in that power struggle, a boy caught up in the struggle without realising it and a mysterious external factor called an "asura" who despite her initial air of harmlessness is clearly going to be bad news for someone.

Initially the book is hard to get to grips with as these four strands interweave, particularly as the boy speaks/writes a phonetic English which takes hard work and practice to read at a reasonably normal pace. However, as the story starts to gel, the characters and plotting slowly become irresistible and by the end the reader has a real feeling of satisfaction for sticking with it.

This is not as easy to read as some of the Culture novels but in its own way it is every bit as rewarding as, say, The Player Of Games.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars short but twisted, 25 April 2007
I like Iain Bank's sci-fi, especially the twisted and unexpected, where you really have no clue where things are heading - such as this one! Even though to me it does still have the flavour of fairly classic sci-fi about it. It is one of his shorter novels, but still takes a long time to read - the phonetic bits slow you down. Actually I liked that, a gimmick maybe, but it also made it more immersive because it was hard work. It made the switching viewpoints (a standard story telling device) more intense.
For me, this was a "better than average" Banks novel. so, I thoroughly recommend it.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic but difficult book, 18 Jan 2006
By L. Davidson (Belfast, N.Ireland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
The world of "Feersum Endjinn" is incredibly weird. Set in the very far future, the Encroachment threatens the Earth with a new Ice Age and the possible extinction of life on the planet itself. Only the remnants of a civilisation are left on Earth ,with most of the rest of its inhabitants having long since departed for the stars. The society that is left is totally bizarre; it is organised on feudal lines and most of the people live in a huge castle the size and height of a large mountain range. The inhabitants have developed very strange and alien powers of the mind; they possess implants to provide them with AI and their minds are "shared" in a hierarchical manner , with "The Privileged" being able to access people minds at will.In parallel with the real world, there is a surreal virtual reality world called "The Crypt" which people can access through their mind ; a sort of world data bank that contains all the thoughts and actions of the past , a world into which people can even download their souls for reincarnation after death, often returning as chimerical animals. It is the complex interaction between the real world and The Crypt which makes this book a difficult one to understand and enjoy. Banks makes a lot of demands on the reader as he creates this convincing but radically different future world. A world where Life and the Afterlife , the Spirit and the Material World ,have fused together and created a totally new reality.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Better & Better
Well now, I've just finished reading this for the third time (in about 10 years) and I just love it more each time! Read more
Published 4 months ago by T. Mcclymont

3.0 out of 5 stars A Strange Read
Many people have thoroughly enjoyed this book as you can see from the other reviews. I however found it to be less engaging than the other Iain M Banks books. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mr. David Kerr

3.0 out of 5 stars Hard to read.
It was really hard to read this book, author too often switches story from one character to other. At the beginning of each paragraph I wondered "About who this paragraph is... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mr. Andrey Maykov

4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Sci-Fi
In this case fantastic in both the superlative and literal sense of the word.

It's a shame that so many people seem to have gotten hung up on the use of phonetic... Read more
Published 6 months ago by HD

5.0 out of 5 stars Very weird but superb
On a future earth threatened by the destruction promised by the encroachment. Four seperate characters set out on different paths to try to save themselves and the world. Read more
Published 10 months ago by DDH255

5.0 out of 5 stars Great value for money
I've read all of Banks other books and this one remains my favourite by a long long way.

Half the fun of this book is working out what's going on and where exactly... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Joe

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, surreal, imaginative
Once you get used to reading the occassional chapter written phonetically (initialy hard work - i almost gave up after a few pages! Read more
Published 23 months ago by John

5.0 out of 5 stars Stick With It
Like some other reviewers, I found this book hard going at first, especially the phonetically spelled sections recounted by a (presumably) intellectually challenged character - it... Read more
Published 24 months ago by Roger Cawkwell

3.0 out of 5 stars HARD READ
The book is not written in proper English (well not all the way through), but in slang. I found it hard to get into it because of this and can't understand what the reader gains... Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2007 by Morlich07

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
I don't really care for Bank's sci-fi as a whole, but this is one of the top SF stories I have ever encountered, stylish, intelligent and original. Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2006 by Nerd58

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