2018/69: Excession -- Iain M. Banks

call me highway call me conduit call me lightning rod scout catalyst observer call me what you will i was there when i was required through me passed the overarch bedeckants in their great sequential migration across the universes of [no translation] the marriage parties of the universe groupings of [no translation] and the emissaries of the lone bearing the laws of the new from the pulsing core the absolute center of our nested home [loc 7866]

The Excession, a black-body sphere that seems to be older than the universe and which resists all investigation, appears on the edge of Culture space. A group of Minds (artificial intelligences, embodied in various spacecraft) are extremely interested in the Excession. So are the Affront, a thoroughly nasty species ('hearty but horrible') who attempt to gain control of the Excession and thus put themselves on a more level playing-field vis-a-vis the Culture.

One of the Minds, the Sleeper Service, is sent towards the Excession by its fellow Minds. The Sleeper Service has been home for over forty years to Dajeil Gelian, who has prolonged her pregnancy for decades due to betrayal by her lover, Byr Genar-Hofoen (who was also a woman at the time but is now a man, and likes hanging out with the Affront). The price of the Sleeper Service's cooperation is an engineered reunion between the two.

I remember greatly enjoying Excession when I first read it, back in the last millennium. This time around, I found Genar-Hofoen thoroughly toxic, noted a sour tang of misogyny, and was much more interested in the Minds and the Excession -- and the dastardly plot which has been hatched with the Excession as an excuse.

Splendid big-screen space-opera, some fascinating ideas (like the Sleeper Service's tableaux of people in suspended animation, recreating famous historical battles et cetera, and the Grey Area's habit of non-consensually reading the minds of genocidal leaders), and an interesting critique of the Culture's -- well, the Minds' -- pragmatism and sense of honour. Never mind Banks' enjoyment of the grotesque or his often-unpleasant characters, his creations are magnificent.