The first critics to review Scottish novelist Iain Banks’ new novel Transition can’t agree on whether the book is a masterpiece or a hunk of junk.
Unusually, Banks has apparently tried to bridge his mainstream novels with his science fiction prose (published separately under Iain M. Banks) in the book, which was released early this month.
But, writes James Walton in UK newspaper The Telegraph, the attempt failed:
… the storytelling isn’t very accomplished. Several plot strands are set up only to remain undeveloped — or abandoned … The prologue may lead us to expect — rather excitedly in my case — a dark conspiracy thriller. What we get instead feels more like a bundle of half-formed bits and pieces that were knocking about in Banks’s notebooks.
However, writing in the Independent on Sunday, reviewer Doug Johnstone heaps praise on Transition, noting he wished more contemporary fiction was like the novel:
As always with Banks, the imaginative detail is frequently stunning. By creating a universe of infinite different but related worlds, the writer has given his mind free rein to create and describe all sorts of weird and wonderful alternatives to our society … Transition is a book that makes you think, one that makes you look at the world around you in a different light, and it’s also a properly thrilling read.
Other short reviews of the book are available online, but they don’t go beyond a few paragraphs as do Johnstone and Walton.
Several reviewers on Amazon also posted somewhat negative reviews of the book. Writes one:
“As Banks moves from world to world his descriptions of lavish parties and claustrophobic hospitals are detailed and evocative. The ending is tense and exciting. Yet in the development of the story, the rapid changes of perspective often become frustrating and confusing dissipating the momentum of the plot. This is an ambitious and challenging novel but one which I did not enjoy as much as others by the writer.
Another added that too many of the plot lines in the book didn’t seem to go anywhere, with the book being cramped because of too many ideas.
The synopsis for the book is:
A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? On the Concern’s books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher.
And then there’s the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.
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27 Responses to Iain Banks’ Transition gets mixed reviews
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I have to agree with the negative reviewers. I’ve read all of Banks’ stuff, and this is one of his worst. Not quite as bad as The Business, but definitely bottom tier. The world-building is lazy, the characters are flat, and the plot is alternatively slow and utterly pointless. Quite a disappointment.
Really? I just posted my review, I quite liked it:
http://www.keepingthedoor.com/2009/10/26/iain-banks-transition-review/
Have to say I’m flabbergasted that this novel has mixed reviews. I thought it was fantastic!
I have read all of banks’ previous works and would definitely rate this up there with the best.
He seems to have great fun obfuscating who is who in the narrative, purposefully leaving until the final act to reveal who’s who.
The book uses an excellent premise to explore some pretty profound issues and does so using interesting three dimensional characters. Its also a ripping yarn to boot!
As for unexplored story arcs or loose ends, I suspect that this is just an introduction to world (or worlds) that Banks fully intends to revisit.
This is M.banks transition into the mainstream and I for one loved it. Please sir can i have some more?
I agree with your sentiments Karl. However I kind of feel that Transition is not for everyone. As I wrote in the review:
“Many will be turned off by Banks’ disaffected style and his demand that readers dig a little deeper and work for their literary reward.”
My feeling is some reviewers didn’t bother digging ;)
I agree with Karl.
Loved the way it made you think about what was going on and challenged you to keep up.
It is a fantastic concept. It is as if he is taking Michael Moorcock into a modern earth and baring mankinds desire for power and control for all to see.
I thought the way the characters were gradually revealed was briliant. Even if you figured them out it was still a joy to read and immerse yourself in.
Would definitely like to read more about the concern.
I also thought of Moorcock whilst reading Transition. I loved it but if you like everything tied up a neat bow, maybe this isn’t for you.
I have seen more “confusing”. I read a novel not long ago from portuguese writer, Antonio Lobo Antunes. I took the entire book to realise we were jumping between 6 diferent narrators and to find their identities. Was so odd that the writer would switch between narrators during a dialogue between the previous and the next narrator.
Guess that opened my mind to follow the much easier Bank’s twisted plot.
I have to agree with Karl…Not only is this a dynamite book with wonderful depth and subtlety, it rewards the careful reader with its heart…And it sets up a potential series that could rival the milieu of The Culture.
Re Alexander’s take, I’m reminded of the great Gene Siskel’s comment about a critic calling a fine film ‘slow’: ‘If you think this movie was slow, then you’re slow.’
Loved 90% of banks work, got this one (Transition) with high expectations only to have them deftly and steadily crushed. A steaming turd of a book by an author with so much more to offer. Shame on you Banks I want my money and my time back!
Transitions felt oddly familiar… until I realised that I had been expecting Moorcocks’ Jerry Cornelius and Mrs Una Persson to pop into this corner of the Multiverse. Maybe I ought to have just have stuck to “The English Assassin” and watched them start needling people or shaking them down in counterpoint to Soviet Tanks rolling into yet another Prague in yet another 1968.
Oh, and even the Villainess felt like Mrs Brunner. Pity there was no Bishop Beesley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Cornelius
For what it’s worth.
Banks has created another fascinating fictional world in which to ply his art. I’m hoping we learn as much about The Concern as we have The Culture in his sci-fi works. I’d say this is a foundation novel and necessarily leaves some arcs open, the reader left wanting.
Can somebody explain to me why Temudjin Oh murders Adrian, the guy who has just saved his life, on the last page? Seems a tad excessive. Or am I missing something?
I think you did miss something. Oh didn’t murder Adrian, he flitted into the mind of his would-be assassin as he tried to make his escape from the hospital and caused him to crash. Adrian was killed by his own over-attachment to his material posessions – possibly a comment from the author on the (at least partial) failure of a “greed world”.
Thanks, Neil – yup – I suppose that makes sense. Though the last time I met Patient 8262 he seemed pretty confused, and I’d have thought not quite up for transitional derring do. But you’ll tell me that Oh was just lying low under the surface. Heigh ho – the reader you’ve just enlightened is a bear of very limited brain.
And that being the case, one of the many things I don’t get about this transitional multi-world caper: in all these universes there must be a very large number of Ohs, Ortolans, Mulverhills, Biscuittins – and sometimes they’ll have taken one political or personal choice about who’s side they’re on, and sometimes another. What happens when they meet, and they belong to the wrong party? Must happen quite a lot with all this identity-swapping – could be quite embarrassing. Or do a subset of the infinite Ohs ever arrange to meet in a largish cafe in some version of Venice, and swap perspectives?
Mind you, I still think it’s a trifle casual to polish off poor Adrian on the last page. A bit of an afterthought. And if we’re talking moral comments on the part of the suthor, Adrian’s pushy entrepreneurial dosh-gobbling seems to me pretty innocent compared with sexy Oh’s murders-on-order – he keeps telling us he has no idea why the victims have to be spiflicated – just does it because he’s been told to. Now where have I heard that excuse before?
The torturer ends up getting tortured – why shouldn’t the murderer end up getting murdered, if punishment for moral failure is the name of the game?
An I for an I, as Transitionaries put it.
Yeah, the whole “almost infinite” multiverse thing never really works does it. Good brain training trying to think it through though. Banks always seems to have some kind of moral perspective in his work but its common for him to not to follow through with the neat tying of ends with all the characters. I agreed Adrian’s end was a bit glib and contrived as was Philosopher’s but Oh’s lack of come-uppance from the point of view of tidiness may point to some kind of gradual remorse for earlier actions he committed under the auspices of the state, as he sees the bigger pictur.
e. Perhaps they are just all part of one composite Freudian character of the novel – Buscuittine is the “id” (childlike, unpredicatble but with huge influence) Mulverhill the “superego” (in control, wise) and Oh, Philosopher and Adrian are the “ego” (their actions following their own world views) until they meet with the superego who either kills them or points them in the right direction. This seems to be a thread that runs though much of Banks’ work?? On the whole the book doesn’t necessarily work scientificallly but why should it as its hugely enjoyable and each episode extremely well written.
Also, I believe that Banks states than Calbefraque – where Oh, Mulverhill, d’Ortolan etc. are from (or at least trained) – is unique. And of course each universe probably can only access those nearby with ease.
Neil, excellently deconstructed. This is why I enjoyed this book, because there are so many possible interpretations of the events.
I did find this a good read. Whacky, fun and not to be taken seriously, this probably lies as the literary version of “Rush Hour”.
His best non-SF novel since The Bridge, IMHO.
Sure, not for everyone and not without its flaws. Banks bites off a lot, and can’t quite chew through all of it, but found myself repeatedly pausing mid-read just to admire the quality of the writing and the ambition of his ideas.
May have benefited from fewer but better-developed ideas, mind, but at least this conceptual flitting around is in keeping with the “transitioning” that forms central plot device.
I have to agree with many of the specific criticisms noted above, but that doesn’t alter the fact that I loved this book, probably more than any of his previous. Banks is always a writer that I’ve wanted to like more than I did, his sci-fi I’ve found very hit and miss – I never did finish Feersum Enjin, but I thouroughly enjoyed Player Of Games. This novel had me engrossed from the outset right through to the end.
It can’t be denied that Transition isn’t a perfect novel – as people mentioned above, there are some plot strands that don’t seem to go anywhere and some which you wonder precisely how they relate to the main story – but I found it hard to care because it is ultimately a fascinating and rewarding read. Certainly I felt that there was a lot backstory for characters who were essentially of only passing importance to the plot, but that backstory is interesting to read so I didn’t mind. The main character would have benefitted from more page-time, he was little bit like a blank piece of paper – you don’t really know anything about him other than that he’s a talented assassin and the female characters seem desperate to fuck him. But I can’t help thinking that was deliberate, as he frequently says that the bodies he transitions into are usually bland-looking and physically unimpressive, to enable him to easily blend into a crowd. I really wanted to know more about the physics and science behind transitioning – how the writer thought it worked and logistically how it would be achieved (for example, why, when they “flitted”, were their new bodies in the same physical location and, apparantly, the same position? And what happens to their target body’s minds when the transitioner inhabited it?). Some of it didn’t make logical sense and some of the things the character says are contradicted elsewhere, but again it seems likely that was a deliberate act on behalf of the author. I didn’t find the frequent changes in perspective and storylines jarring, rather I felt it added to the complexity of the tale. I felt that the purpose and direction of the book altered quite dramatically from the beginning to the end, things which seem important at the outset are swept away and the story takes a direction you didn’t expect.
Reading other reviews it’s obvious to me that this book has very much polarised opinions but I am firmly in the pro camp. This isn’t a book that gives you everything on a plate, it’s one that encourages you to think and rewards you for doing so. The scope is grand and sweeping, and the cast of characters are diverse and interesting. I rate it as one of Banks’s best.
Valid criticism — I agree with much of this. As much as people are polarised by Banks’ writing, it’s impossible to say that his stuff is immature — it’s always interesting in one way or another. If I was him, I would work on making it more accessible, however.
This was disappointing, like hunting around a disappointing salad for the good bits. It was all over the place and required a strict focus for all the detail that you hoped would come into play at some relevant time. I found myself only reading ‘Adrian’ at times, even as that segued into comfortable ‘The Hustle’ cliche. Some undergraduate jibes at Tories that seemed a blatant attempt at appeasing the Guardinistas
And I loved ‘Dead Air’ – can’t believe the negative press it got. Now THAT was rolling dialogue done brilliant.
I’m a Banks fan – well, of his novels. I don’t care for sci-fi so imagine my response to find out this was just that. My fault I guess – I should have picked this from the synopsis. Anyway, I persevered for a while before giving in. This book is just a great big wank whether sci-fi or a novel.
Although I’m generally a Banks fan, I thought this book was terrible.
I’ll say one thing for it: it was a page turner for the first half because I kept thinking that on the next page it would all make sense. Instead, the plot flaws and inconsistencies just mounted up in cumulative fashion until by the end I didn’t care any more.
In fact, there are more plot flaws than you can shake a stick out. The whole premise of the transitioning concept just doesn’t make sense. The idea seems to be that at every quantum event where multiple possible outcomes could occur, multiple alternative universes are spawned where each possible outcome takes place. So far, so good, but if personalities are moving between these universes then infinitely more universes are constantly coming into existence even as the transitioner is out of his original body. In each of those universes, the transitioner has different experiences so it just makes no sense for the transitioner to return to his original body with a single experience (after all, he will have been killed in some of the alternative universes).
As for Calbefraque being unique, how so? It may have been once but since then surely infinite Calbefraque’s would have developed in their respective alternative universes.
Then there’s the part that really got my goat. Mrs Mulverhill and Mr Oh transition to an Earth where all life has been wiped out. Excuse me?! Into whose body do they transition then?!
Also, there’s the ongoing sub plot about Mrs Mulverhill having cat-slit eyes but having to hide them with a veil. How can this be? It’s clearly stated that transitioner’s take on the exact appearance of the body into which they transition. Either that body has cat-slit eyes in which case it would presumably be normal on that Earth and raise no comment or that body wouldn’t have cat-slit eyes and no veil would be required.
What’s really annoying is that any half-decent editor would have spotted these and got Banks to fix them. In view of this book and some of his other recent offerings, I’m getting the impression that Banks is in the unfortunate position that he is too “important” for any editor to dare to sit him down and tell him to do a major re-write.
In any case, I think I could have overlooked all the above blunders on the grounds that it was not supposed to be an SF book if the plot and characters were compelling. Instead, we have incredibly two dimensional characters (with the notable exception of Mr Kleist – the book’s only saving grace in my view) who are simply “good” or “bad” because they are. Then we get a hold lot of left wing political and economic verbiage that seems a little pointless because if you need to have a fantasy world to make your arguments make sense than that rather undermines the arguments in the first place.
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it there. This book isn’t worth spending any more time on.
You could analyse this book to death. The truth is though,would you want to? Im not one for using “buzz” words but the first thing that comes to mind when describing this book is boring. The last 50 pages are tense but the 350 proceeding it made me want to lay face down on the M25
I think this is Banks’ ‘Lost’. Whether intentional or not, this story sets you up expecting a lot, posing a many questions and instead of grabbing hold of and biting into these topics and ideas he’s hinting at, the story like the characters, flit across the surface and then get hastely tied together in a very obvious way. But then again, writing about endless parellel universes you can’t help but contradict yourself (the uniqueness of Calbafraques!) and not be able to delve too deeply into the concept. Because if you did, surely there would be as he hints at, endless Concerns, each with slightly different intentions and you’d have a book where countless d’Ortolans and Mulverhills battled each other. This felt like an introductory novel for a series and I hope it is. Pity he killed Adrian though, I liked that character!