Iain M. Banks‘ Use of Weapons is a thought-provoking, if flawed, meditation on the use of violence as a tool for political and societal development by future highly advanced cultures, and the disturbing personal implications for those doing the dirty work it consists of.
But be warned: Many readers will undoubtedly find the book’s construction extremely frustrating and find it hard to keep going to the final pages.
First published in 1990, Use of Weapons represents one of Banks’ first incursions into the science fiction field after the Scottish author took the mainstream literary world somewhat by storm with his debut novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. (A note for confused readers: Banks writes under Iain M. Banks when he writes sci-fi, and just plain Iain Banks when he’s not. We also found this confusing.)
Like many of Banks’ succeeding sci-fi efforts, the book is set in the far future; a time when our galaxy is dominated by a complex and highly evolved society known only as The Culture.
The Culture, a mongrel society composed of many humanoid life-forms and their intermingled offspring, has perfected virtually any technology science fiction literature has been able to dream up over the past century. Gravitational and biological manipulation interstellar travel, advanced weaponry, artificial intelligences with full citizenship rights: The Culture has it all.
And its citizens can live forever; most of them choose to die after only three or four hundred years pursuing whatever pleasures or more work-like endeavours they are interested in. In one memorable scene, a Culture citizen says she’s constructing a new starship just for fun, although machines could do it easier and faster.
But (surprise, surprise), not every galactic resident is as advanced and urbane the peace-loving Culturites. There are plenty of other less developed societies out there causing galactic stinks. Enter The Culture’s Special Circumstances branch; an organisation that appears to specialise in stopping these less advanced civilisations — humanoid, machine or alien — from going postal.
Special Circumstances is mainly represented in Use of Weapons by sex-bomb Culturite Diziet Sma and her robot (or using the book’s label, ‘drone’) Skaffen-Amtiskaw.
The pair make an amusing duo; ironically Skaffen-Amtiskaw displays some of the most human emotions to be found in the book, at least superficially — the drone is often flippant, petty, sarcastic or even heartlessly cruel, whereas Sma mostly just appears dispassionately amused by the antics of the lesser societies she shepherds — when she’s not sleeping with their more attractive citizens.
It’s a classic image often witnessed in futuristic Japanese anime and manga — offsider robots or artificial intelligences which display more human traits than the human protagonists they accompany.
But Sma and Skaffen-Amtiskaw are really just the sideshow of the book. Its protagonist is the non-Culture soldier known as Cheradenine Zakalwe.
Plucked from obscurity by Sma and filled full of military knowledge, Zakalwe is The Culture’s answer to James Bond; when it doesn’t want to be seen to be getting its hands dirty or just wants to avoid complicated internal ethical debates, it drops Zakalwe in trouble zones to sort out the natives.
But like any other weapon, Zakalwe has a use-by limit, and not even Skaffen-Amtiskaw’s sub-systems have fully plumbed the depths of his past.
There’s no doubt that you’ll spend a few moments contemplating the issues and plot found in Use of Weapons once you’ve finished reading it. Make no mistake; this book is no James Bond-style thriller. It’s a deeply philosophical novel that is more concerned with wry humour about and genuine insight into the human condition than flashy action scenes with laser guns; although it does have several of those.
But frankly, you’ll probably get bored and frustrated along the way before you reach its fascinating conclusion, due to problems with the book’s construction that make it less than a page-turner.
Firstly, despite the book’s fascination with the human condition, Banks’ writing keeps readers at a 10,000-foot view of his protagonists. Very rarely when reading Use of Weapons did I feel connected in any way with his characters; for all the reader empathy they generate they might as well have been robots from the twentieth century.
The problem is not one of plot or character development. It’s just endemic to the way Banks writes. Although his characters do experience deep emotions that verge on unhinging their minds at multiple points during the book, the author does a poor job of conveying that emotion to the reader.
Secondly, Banks has an appalling habit of starting each new chapter in a different time period and place, and with a different protagonist, to the preceding chapter — but without pausing to re-orient the reader.
Often when reading Use of Weapons, you’ll find yourself wondering whose viewpoint you’re following — and on which planet, in which time frame?
Zakalwe as a young man on his home planet? As an old man on a different planet? Sma between planets in space? Often the reader doesn’t know, and this makes Use of Weapons one of those books which you’ll often put down and walk away until you’re in a more patient frame of mind.
The third problem I had with the book was its unbelievable plot. Science fiction and fantasy authors have long known that creating protagonists or organisations with omniscient and all-powerful abilities makes for poor plot development.
The fact that many of the character in Use of Weapons are protected by The Culture’s utopian embrace takes much of the drama and tension out of the book’s action scenes and ultimately deflates the entire framework Banks gradually builds up.
Why, for instance, does The Culture need to employ fallible human agents from other societies against each other? Why doesn’t it just deploy the invincible Skaffen-Amtiskaw with a nuclear bomb tucked under its wing and an ultimatum to stop fighting or the galactic police will pull the plug? Touchy ethical concerns? Give me a break.
If a spider is fighting a bunch of ants in your kitchen, you don’t manipulate them until they stop. You just sweep the whole lot out of the doorway with your broom and go back to reading War and Peace with a cup of tea.
Use of Weapons contains some fascinating ideas about humanity’s far-off possible future, especially when it comes to the difficult question of how, why and when advanced societies should interfere with their backward cousins — and what the impact might be on the actors in such situations.
There’s plenty of hilarious moments in the book, and the discerning science fiction fan should probably add it to their list to get to eventually.
But let’s not pretend Banks didn’t have quite some development to go as a writer when he put it together in the late 1980′s. Use of Weapons is described on its back cover as “ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific”. That it is. But it’s also described as “a masterpiece”. Well, masterpieces don’t have their readers intermittently cursing them and falling asleep.
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16 Responses to Banks’ Use of Weapons: A Review
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It’s been a while since I read Use of Weapons, and when I did I had already read a few of the culture books before so I had some understanding of the universe.
The plot is “confusing” since it tells two stories interleaved between the chapters. One story goes from the chronological end of the story backwards, telling the story of Zakalwe’s work with Culture. The other story tells the story of Zakalwe’s origin. The two stories meet at the end of the book in the defining moment of the book.
Personally I prefer books (and stories) that are not obvious and require some work for the reader. But most of Bank’s other Culture books are easier to follow, such as the first one Player of Games. These will also tell you more about why Culture acts the way it does and doesn’t always take the “short cut” of nuking everything until it glows.
And I’d say most “masterpiece” works have the tendency to make casual readers/viewers fall asleep. If it’s a masterpiece it tends to require that the consumer is well versed in related works in order to fully appreciate the work. Much like War and Peace, which you mention.
I am planning to read more of The Culture books, as they have a huge following, and my friends keep on recommending them to me :)
Hmm. I think what you are saying here is that to be rewarding, there has to be some pain for the reader, or maybe conversely, that most of the most rewarding books necessarily involve some pain for the reader.
However I don’t necessarily agree.
I’ve read a lot of science fiction, with much greater degrees of complexity than found in Banks’ Use of Weapons.
There’s a difference between making the reader work for their reward, and causing them pain as they go through the book. The first will be appreciated when it pays off. The second will turn readers away.
I agree Use of Weapons has a stunning conclusion. But I shouldn’t have to read other Culture books or be emotionally divorced from the characters to appreciate the preceding story which leads to that conclusion :)
I completely disagree with many major components of your review. As with the other commenter, I don’t agree that the “confusion” is unnecessary to the story being told – and I didn’t find it painful in the least. I thought it added suspense and made things more interesting to be simultaneously moving both forward and backwards chronologically, and have both directions reveal more of the story.
I also disagree that one feels disconnected from the characters. Although there is a degree of separation between the characters (excluding Zakalwe, imo) and the reader, it does not serve to make one feel disconnected from the characters as much as it serves to put their experiences and emotions into the larger context of the story (which, ultimately, centers on Zakalwe, whom I don’t recall feeling disconnected from).
Most importantly, I thought your criticism of how Special Circumstances works to be utterly fatuous. The Culture is about free choice inasmuch as possible. When Special Circumstances becomes involved, it takes away some free choice, but the goal is the minimum intervention possible, and to do it without anyone ever realizing they were involved. As I recall, the rationale for how SC operates is explained in Use of Weapons (although I have read other Culture books more recently, and may be remembering information which was presented in those as being presented in Use of Weapons). Regardless of any slips of my memory in that regard, I do not recall any uncertainty in the reasoning for why SC operates the way they do – and Use of Weapons was my introduction to the Culture novels.
I also strongly dispute your assessment “Hmm. I think what you are saying here is that to be rewarding, there has to be some pain for the reader, or maybe conversely, that most of the most rewarding books necessarily involve some pain for the reader.” A challenging read is not necessarily painful. Having to think about what you are reading is not what makes a book frustrating for me. Was Use of Weapons a particularly easy read? No – the chronology of the story and the changes in perspective make it somewhat confusing at times (and I suspect this confusion was intentional), but I didn’t find that it made for a frustrating read – quite the opposite; I greatly enjoyed it. Unnecessary repetition, simple-minded writing, stupid plot holes, badly written characters, shoddy logic, things like that are what make a read painful for me – I experienced none of these in Use of Weapons.
No worries! Everyone’s entitled to their opinion and I respect yours, as it’s well-thought out.
I am planning to read some more of Banks’ sci-fi shortly, so will let readers know how my opinion varies as I read his more recent work.
THis part is less review
I think this says more about your politics than anything else.
You seem to think because the culture is more powerful, it should just exist outside of any ethical concerns?
Do you usually beat people up you disagree with just because you can get away with it?
Hi meeech,
actually no, I don’t think because a culture is more powerful, that it should exist outside of ethical concerns! :)
But plots need to be believable, and plots including omniscient, all-powerful groups tend to be less believable because the options and actions of those groups are not restricted. The use of such groups needs to be pretty justified and explained well to succeed.
Then, too, there is the problem that we don’t have many examples of extremely powerful civilisations that haven’t taken advantage of their power.
The most realistic example of anarchistic society of the sort that The Culture sort of, kind of, is, that I have seen is described in Ursula K. Le Guin’s book The Dispossessed. And even that culture struggles with its passivity.
I guess I just found The Culture’s actions a little strange and wanted better exposition of its motives, structures etc, than Banks provided in this book.
Renal: I’ve read all the Culture novels to date except Matter, so maybe I can put this in perspective. SC works in similar ways to the CIA during the Cold War. They have an agenda and a goal and they work behind the scenes, manipulating governments and militaries to achieve their ends. The Culture have gone to war, the Culture-Idiran War was the backdrop of the first novel, Consider Phlebas. The Culture’s interference with other races has little to do with their security, though. They’re more like Evangelical Christians who view it as their duty to make sure everyone is exactly like them, to make sure they’re “saved” by adopting the Culture’s values. So they “guide” these races by interfering with them and pushing them towards the Culture’s ideal, and sometimes (as in the novels since that’s most interesting), there’s conflict.
Use of Weapons isn’t where I would have started with the series, to be frank. Consider Phlebas makes for the best starting point, I think, primarily because it does a good job of establishing the Culture’s general character from the perspective of an outsider. (Player of Games is also a good look at the Culture’s manipulation of other societies, but I had a few qualms about other elements of the story.) The events of the Culture-Idiran war also get referenced in a couple of the other novels, and while it’s not necessary to have read it to enjoy them, it helps a bit. The Culture novels are different from most series in that they’re all stand-alone stories, but like all series, it still helps to read them in chronological order.
Ah I see. That may have helped. I was told you could read any of them as they were stand-alone; and while that seems to be the truth, it also seems that it’s better to actually read them in order :) I do have Consider Phelbas, so I may read that shortly!
You seem to think that because a group can do something they should/would do something.
You also come from the vantage point where you equate the warring sides with being insects from the cultures perspective.
But they aren’t insects, they are other sentients.
So, its perfectly consistent within the universe banks has created that the culture doesnt go around committing genocide of anyone less advanced as them.
And we already know they are no omniscient.
Fair point! I’ll let you know how I go with the rest of Banks’ Culture novels; may change my view etc as I go on and learn more.
One minor point: in the short story The State of the Art, in the collection by the same name, it’s revealed that the Culture exists now, not in “the far future”.
Diziet Sma appears in it as well. :)
Heh fair enough! Damn. Wish I could get me some of that Culture longevity and spaceship building technology ;)
‘Banks writes under Iain M. Banks when he writes sci-fi, and just plain Iain Banks when he’s not. We also found this confusing.’
Well if you find that confusing, it’s not surprising ypu’re thrown by things like two-strands of narrative in the same book…
Sorry for posting two comments, I just got to the end. On this observation:
“The Culture need to employ fallible human agents from other societies against each other? Why doesn’t it just deploy the invincible Skaffen-Amtiskaw with a nuclear bomb tucked under its wing and an ultimatum to stop fighting or the galactic police will pull the plug? Touchy ethical concerns? Give me a break.
If a spider is fighting a bunch of ants in your kitchen, you don’t manipulate them until they stop. You just sweep the whole lot out of the doorway with your broom and go back to reading War and Peace with a cup of tea.”
I have to say, as other commenters have, that this would not only be utterly contrary to the Culture’s philosophy, it would actually defeat any logical object of intervention of any kind. Your error lies not so much in your not having read enough Culture books, as in your basic hold on logic.
The second reason the Culture doesn’t just show up in force and make threats is simple: it doesn’t work. Witness the UN peace-keeping effort in Bosnia. It was assumed that the world’s greates super-power and co. would just turn up on the doorstep of a backward country and frighten the locals into behaving themselves. Unfortunately, when yhey were ignored, it left the soldiers on the ground (with no clear mandate) the choice of shooting poeple to stop them shooting each other (er…) or standing by and watching helplessly. And then pulling their own troops out for their own safety. Egg-on-face recipe. Ever heard of Srebenica?
Rwanda’s another case in point…
You really should have read Consider Phlebas first. I’d also suggest this:
“A FEW NOTES ON THE CULTURE by Iain M Banks”
http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
or at least
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture
If your response to the Culture doing (or not doing) something out of ethical or ideological concern is “give me a break,” these may not be the books for you.
And I don’t find Banks’ writing style to be distancing vis a vis characterization at all. Rather I find that he does a good job of showing, and not telling, the thoughts and feelings of his characters from an external POV–that he doesn’t rely on overly informative omniscient narration or a lot of first person exposition for characterization is a mark of skill in my book.
The structure of Use of Weapons might be a bit confusing, but it isn’t at all random. The chapters alternate between ones moving forward in the “present” plotline (chapters “One”, “Two”, “Three” through “Fourteen”) and ones moving backward through the “backstory” plotline (chapters “XIII”, “XII”, “XI” through “I”). They are bookended by a prologue and epilogue which (it should be clear after reading chapter “Fourteen”) both occur after the main plot of the novel. So the chronological order is something like: childhood, war, the chair, the long voyage and cold sleep, the iceberg planet and recruitment by SC, the nomads and the desert tent, various adventures on different planets, a beheading, the Winter Palace, the “main plot”, and then the prologue and epilogue.
As for the confusing habit of dropping the reader among a cast of characters without calling them by their names: it’s a very calculated part of the style of the book.