Saturday, April 20, 2024

2024/052: The Hydrogen Sonata — Iain M Banks

Why do we bother with this sort of bio-tangling stuff in the first place? We could live lives of such uncomplicated joy if we left them to their own sordid, murderous devices. [loc. 1207]

The Gzilt, a Culture-adjacent civilisation, are counting down the days to Sublimation, when their entire species / civilisation will enter a higher plane of being (or possibly a 'great retirement home'), as foretold in their Book of Truth. But when a neighbouring civilisation sends a ship to reveal a long-held secret to the Gzilt, that ship is destroyed. What secret can possibly be deemed so dangerous at this point?

The key to the mystery involves musician Vyr Cossont, a grown woman who is repeatedly referred to as 'the girl'. Vyr has grown an extra pair of arms to enable her to play the eponymous Hydrogen Sonata, an experimental and perhaps unlistenable piece subtitled 'String-Specific Sonata For An Instrument Yet To Be Invented'. With the help of a mysterious Culture ship, the Mistake Not..., she has to track down an old friend who may know the solution to the mystery. Meanwhile, two non-human races are squabbling for scavenger rights to anything the Gzilt leave behind, and various Culture ships are zooming around, having long conversations and involving themselves in other civilisations' business. So no change there.

I have fond memories of earlier Culture novels but found this one a slog: possibly just a case of 'right book, wrong time', but I found it less engaging than expected. There were some glorious, and some gloriously self-indulgent, ideas and scenes; some interesting observations about the allegedly-peaceful Culture, and the Minds; some intriguing characters, and enticing asides ('the broad hips of a non-mammalian humanoid': why?). But I didn't especially like any of the characters (except perhaps the Mistake Not...) and there seemed to be elements, such as Vyr's shawl-form companion Pyan, which could have been removed without damage to the overall structure.

The Hydrogen Sonata (Banks' last Culture novel) was published in 2012, and I suspect the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum was looming large in the author's mind: but lines like 'if we’re all about to step into the big bright and shining light, Vyr, but there is just a chance that we’d be doing so under false pretences, and it would be good to know the truth, don’t you think? Just in case we wanted to rethink...' [loc. 1802] just make me think of a later referendum whose outcome was shaped by lies.

Now I want to reread the earlier novels, most of which I have not revisited in at least two decades. But looking back over my reviews of Matter, Consider Phlebas, The Algebraist, and Excession (two of which were rereads), I find that my enjoyment of Banks' SF has not been unalloyed. Perhaps I should skip the rereads and retain my faint hazy impression of excitement, adventure and really wild things.

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