Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Orbit (1995). Trade paperback edition. 279 pages. £5.99.
Description
Count Sessine is about to die for the very last time...Chief Scientist Gadfium is about to receive the mysterious message she has been waiting for from the Plain of Sliding Stones...And Bascule the Teller, in search of an ant, is about to enter the chaos of the crypt...And everything is about to change...For this is the time of the encroachment and, although the dimming sun still shines on the vast, towering walls of Serehfa Fastness, the end is close at hand. The King knows it, his closest advisers know it, yet sill they prosecute the war against the clan Engineers with increasing savagery. The crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent, an emissary who holds the key to all their futures.
User reviews
LibraryThing member grizzly.anderson
As several other reviews have noted this, more than any other Ian Banks novel I've read, is a stylistic experiment by the author. There are four main characters, and the story is told generally by rotating through their viewpoints, with an occasional section from a 5th. Count Sessine, who spends
The setting of the story is a city within a gigantic building in the form of a house tens of kilometers in height, left behind when most of the Earth's population departed for elsewhere. The future of the Earth is threatened by "The Encroachment", apparently a cosmic dust cloud. But solving that problem isn't really what Feersum Endjin is about.
Most of Banks's novels explore some philosophical theme, and about half way through I was asking myself what this one was about, beyond the obvious exploration of someone who can only embrace language phonetically. That part is easy enough to get used to if you're interested in the rest, but struck me as tedious and fairly irrelevant after a couple of chapters. I think "what its about" is an exploration of identity - what it means to be the person you are. Both Sessine and Gadfium interact copies of themselves, that given the nature of the Crypt are no less "real" than they are. Sessine is dead almost from the moment we meet him, and yet he is an active person, critical to the unfolding of events (I almost said "vital", but well, he's dead). Asura is a fully mature being, with no knowledge of who she is or what her role is, but with all the experience of an adult just waiting to be triggered into awareness by experience. Bascule regularly experiences "life" from the position of a chimera - a person inhabiting the real or crypt-space body of a real or mythical animal.
From that viewpoint - an exploration of identity and personness - Gadfium and the King serve as the control cases. And they understandably play a lesser role. Gadfium is the completely vanilla person - alive, aware of herself and her past, but never directly connected to the Crypt, so like any "normal" person. The King is the person with no morals and no scruples, almost not a person at all, just ego - the negative control to Gadfium's positive.
Maybe exploring identity this way isn't so clever or interesting now, years after the invention of cyberpunk, when we've all seen The Matrix, and cyberspace makes some sort of appearance in every fifth SF novel, but 14 years ago, not so old. And it is Ian Banks. You can count on absolutely top-notch writing, interesting and unusual characters, and a fully-realized world for them to inhabit.
As for the Deus-ex-machina of the Feersum Endjinn, I like to think it is his little homage to one of my favorite Alan Dean Foster short stories.
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most of the novel, dead, acting in the cyberspace/afterlife/alternate reality of the Data Crypt; Bascule a professional crypt-surfer with a disorder which causes him to only be able to process language phonetically; Asura, a emissary and power in the form of an enigma wrapped in a mystery; Gadfium scientist, conspirator, and crypt neophyte; and occasionally the King, schemer, spy, and peeping tom.The setting of the story is a city within a gigantic building in the form of a house tens of kilometers in height, left behind when most of the Earth's population departed for elsewhere. The future of the Earth is threatened by "The Encroachment", apparently a cosmic dust cloud. But solving that problem isn't really what Feersum Endjin is about.
Most of Banks's novels explore some philosophical theme, and about half way through I was asking myself what this one was about, beyond the obvious exploration of someone who can only embrace language phonetically. That part is easy enough to get used to if you're interested in the rest, but struck me as tedious and fairly irrelevant after a couple of chapters. I think "what its about" is an exploration of identity - what it means to be the person you are. Both Sessine and Gadfium interact copies of themselves, that given the nature of the Crypt are no less "real" than they are. Sessine is dead almost from the moment we meet him, and yet he is an active person, critical to the unfolding of events (I almost said "vital", but well, he's dead). Asura is a fully mature being, with no knowledge of who she is or what her role is, but with all the experience of an adult just waiting to be triggered into awareness by experience. Bascule regularly experiences "life" from the position of a chimera - a person inhabiting the real or crypt-space body of a real or mythical animal.
From that viewpoint - an exploration of identity and personness - Gadfium and the King serve as the control cases. And they understandably play a lesser role. Gadfium is the completely vanilla person - alive, aware of herself and her past, but never directly connected to the Crypt, so like any "normal" person. The King is the person with no morals and no scruples, almost not a person at all, just ego - the negative control to Gadfium's positive.
Maybe exploring identity this way isn't so clever or interesting now, years after the invention of cyberpunk, when we've all seen The Matrix, and cyberspace makes some sort of appearance in every fifth SF novel, but 14 years ago, not so old. And it is Ian Banks. You can count on absolutely top-notch writing, interesting and unusual characters, and a fully-realized world for them to inhabit.
As for the Deus-ex-machina of the Feersum Endjinn, I like to think it is his little homage to one of my favorite Alan Dean Foster short stories.
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LibraryThing member isabelx
The Count Sessine had died many times, once in an aircraft crash, once in a bathyscape accident, once at the hand of an assassin, once in a duel, once at a hand of a jealous lover, once at the hand of a lover's jealous husband and once of old age. Now, it was twice at the hand of an assassin; a
On a future earth about to enter a cosmic dust crowd that will threaten extinction for human civilisation, the ruling consistory do not seem to be taking the threat of the Encroachment seriously. The story is told from four points of view; Count Sessine a recently assassinated member of the aristocracy, Chief Gadfium, the government's chief scientist, Bascule a young man who comes to be mixed up in things seemingly by accident, and Asura, who was created by the crypt to bring out the answer to the problem of the Encroachment. The crypt is a fascinating invention; part afterlife, part collective unconscious, part virtual reality world, part AI system protecting the castle and its people.
An exciting if confusing story, that all comes together at the end. The only problem I had was with the phonetic representation of Bascule's speech, . . . whitch . . . if . . . ur . . . nthin . . . lik . . . me . . . wil . . . 1/2 . . . u . . . reedin . . . 1 . . . wurd . . . @ . . . a . . . time . . . like . . . a . . . smol . . . chyl.
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male one this time, for a reason he was unable to determine, and - most distressingly - for the last time. Finally, physically dead, for ever more.On a future earth about to enter a cosmic dust crowd that will threaten extinction for human civilisation, the ruling consistory do not seem to be taking the threat of the Encroachment seriously. The story is told from four points of view; Count Sessine a recently assassinated member of the aristocracy, Chief Gadfium, the government's chief scientist, Bascule a young man who comes to be mixed up in things seemingly by accident, and Asura, who was created by the crypt to bring out the answer to the problem of the Encroachment. The crypt is a fascinating invention; part afterlife, part collective unconscious, part virtual reality world, part AI system protecting the castle and its people.
An exciting if confusing story, that all comes together at the end. The only problem I had was with the phonetic representation of Bascule's speech, . . . whitch . . . if . . . ur . . . nthin . . . lik . . . me . . . wil . . . 1/2 . . . u . . . reedin . . . 1 . . . wurd . . . @ . . . a . . . time . . . like . . . a . . . smol . . . chyl.
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LibraryThing member Penforhire
The phonetic portion of the book, one character's speech, drove me nuts. I got the point of it but I don't think the reader has to beaten quite so hard or consistently about the head and shoulders with it.
I enjoyed how the scope of the narrative zoomed in and out from individual action sequences to
Without spoiling the plot, it bothered me a little that the protagonists were SO sure the crisis was impossible to endure. How does anyone, however advanced, really KNOW that?
The layered structure of cyberspace was slick, nicely conceived, as was the interface to, um, wilderness.
Oh, and it is good to be the king, lol!
The book stands well on its own. You don't have to have read anything else to enjoy it but you do have to be able to enjoy weaving disparate threads together that make little sense at the start. I was worried there for a while but he finally got things to twine together.
I enjoyed how the scope of the narrative zoomed in and out from individual action sequences to
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groups that were behaving oddly, to the largest issue looming over all of humanity.Without spoiling the plot, it bothered me a little that the protagonists were SO sure the crisis was impossible to endure. How does anyone, however advanced, really KNOW that?
The layered structure of cyberspace was slick, nicely conceived, as was the interface to, um, wilderness.
Oh, and it is good to be the king, lol!
The book stands well on its own. You don't have to have read anything else to enjoy it but you do have to be able to enjoy weaving disparate threads together that make little sense at the start. I was worried there for a while but he finally got things to twine together.
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LibraryThing member RobertDay
I first read this book when it originally came out, but only in small chunks and so didn't really get it. It took me almost to the end of the book to work out that we were actually inside a joke megastructure that was actually built like an "ordinary" castle but scaled up many, many times, and that
Now, I've finally re-read it, in sufficiently large chunks to get a far better picture of what was happening. And I really enjoyed it. The political and military scrabbling about was suitably byzantine, the sheer imagination of the mad world-building (that ultimately actually had a point) was breath-taking, and I actually developed a strong liking for Bascule, the POV character who speaks in phonetics. Admittedly, I actually had to read Bascule's epidodes out loud (fortunately, I wasn't in public or in company at the time), the way I do with foreign languages, which aided the flow of reading a lot. Trying to parse Bascule's phonetic speech was difficult, but speaking it made things much easier. Possibly, it rendered Bascule into a proper British character, of a sort I could identify with; though readers should not make the mistake of equating phonetic speech with a lack of intelligence.
Bascule is a Teller, someone who can project themselves into the data Crypt, a repository for uploaded personalities and the sum total of human knowledge. We follow another character, a military commander who makes a few too many enemies on his own side, into the Crypt after he is assassinated. Two other characters - a female scientist and an incarnated digital personality with a Mission - make up the other protagonists in the intrigue.
I got the impression that the Crypt was a trial run for the virtual Hells we would later find in 'Surface Detail'; and indeed, the whole thing has a baroque feel that Banks would return to on a number of occasions. But I was pleased to have revisited this book, and delighted with what I found.
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was so old that actual physical landscape had formed inside some of the rooms. So I put it back on the shelf for another day.Now, I've finally re-read it, in sufficiently large chunks to get a far better picture of what was happening. And I really enjoyed it. The political and military scrabbling about was suitably byzantine, the sheer imagination of the mad world-building (that ultimately actually had a point) was breath-taking, and I actually developed a strong liking for Bascule, the POV character who speaks in phonetics. Admittedly, I actually had to read Bascule's epidodes out loud (fortunately, I wasn't in public or in company at the time), the way I do with foreign languages, which aided the flow of reading a lot. Trying to parse Bascule's phonetic speech was difficult, but speaking it made things much easier. Possibly, it rendered Bascule into a proper British character, of a sort I could identify with; though readers should not make the mistake of equating phonetic speech with a lack of intelligence.
Bascule is a Teller, someone who can project themselves into the data Crypt, a repository for uploaded personalities and the sum total of human knowledge. We follow another character, a military commander who makes a few too many enemies on his own side, into the Crypt after he is assassinated. Two other characters - a female scientist and an incarnated digital personality with a Mission - make up the other protagonists in the intrigue.
I got the impression that the Crypt was a trial run for the virtual Hells we would later find in 'Surface Detail'; and indeed, the whole thing has a baroque feel that Banks would return to on a number of occasions. But I was pleased to have revisited this book, and delighted with what I found.
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LibraryThing member Karlstar
A citation on the cover calls this book 'sharp, witty, comprehensibly terrifying'. What they should have said was 'dull, boring, incomprehensibly mystifying'. Normally Banks is very, very good, this book is clearly not his best. Its hard to read, and follow, and he never really does develop enough
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of the story, or the main theme, for it to be effective. Show Less
LibraryThing member JonArnold
As usual with Banks’ SF incarnation you get the feeling that he’s far more interested in the world and ideas than the characters in the story. Feersum Endjinn is his first non-Culture SF novel, a story set in the far future with a fractured narrative which follows four characters through events
The ending, as in almost every Banks book, isn’t quite satisfying as we’re led up to the crucial moments, then cut away to everything being resolved. It’s like a sex scene cutting away to post-coital bliss without orgasm. The process is great fun and we can see it’s all worked out nicely but we’re denied the moment of greatest pleasure. The characters get the ending they need though, and that’s perhaps the important thing. While I still adore the idea of the Culture and the stories Banks told with it, on this evidence it’s a shame he didn’t stretch himself into creating more new and fascinating worlds like this.
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in a world which is heading to a crisis point. None of these narrators are straightforward characters – one is a newborn adult, another is a chief scientist in receipt of a mysterious message, a third a murdered officer and the last a ‘Teller’ who tells his first person narrative phonetically. As ever with Banks all four are subject to some very nasty (near sadistic) moments but the joy is entirely in the worldbuilding. The great skill is in how the details of this future world are unspooled across the book and how they’re almost of a piece with the story, the reader being able to puzzle together what’s going on from the jigsaw of the narrators but never so far ahead that they feel the narrators are being made to look deliberately stupid. The ending, as in almost every Banks book, isn’t quite satisfying as we’re led up to the crucial moments, then cut away to everything being resolved. It’s like a sex scene cutting away to post-coital bliss without orgasm. The process is great fun and we can see it’s all worked out nicely but we’re denied the moment of greatest pleasure. The characters get the ending they need though, and that’s perhaps the important thing. While I still adore the idea of the Culture and the stories Banks told with it, on this evidence it’s a shame he didn’t stretch himself into creating more new and fascinating worlds like this.
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LibraryThing member Rivendell
As others have noted, this is not an easy read. But unlike some others (such as Bourdieu about whom someone once noted)it is not the case that "he does not have to write this way" : writing this way is part of why Feersum Endjinn is so great. Perhaps it's because I'm dyslexic. Perhaps because I
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have an academic interest in language and identity ... but whatever it is, I "get" this book, and it's one of my favourite Banks' novels. Show Less
LibraryThing member hazzabamboo
The good: ambitious; visceral descriptiveness, good language
The bad: too reliant on technological/alien/sci-fi complication and not enough on story or character. These essentials almost feel drafted in as a self-conscious effort to create something intensely imaginative (which is partially
The bad: too reliant on technological/alien/sci-fi complication and not enough on story or character. These essentials almost feel drafted in as a self-conscious effort to create something intensely imaginative (which is partially
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successful). There isn't enough warmth or humanity; instead, tere is something of a slick, nasty undercurrent which renders it rather empty. In summary, solid and very accomplished, but not engaging or rewarding enough to make re-reading worthwhile. Show Less
LibraryThing member dkowald
3rd of the book is written in some kind of messed-up 'cewl' language style. 1/2 to rate it down :/
LibraryThing member firebird8
I always love Iain Banks. But the POV narrator in this book who wrote not quite phonetically nor the same every time (spelling/abbreviations changed from time to time on the same word) was just absolutely maddening. It was a plot point, but still. It was a struggle to read, and only the interest of
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the story made me stick it out. Show Less
LibraryThing member nx74defiant
This was slow going.
It is from multiple viewpoints. Bascule's had cutesy spelling. It has symbols, numbers, phonetic spell of someone with bad pronunciation. I almost gave up. His sections I often had to go over words several times, sounding things out. It took me out of the story.
It was 1/2 for
For example Wel, that woz thi ferry. instead of Well, that was the theory.
I was a little disappointed by the ending.
It is from multiple viewpoints. Bascule's had cutesy spelling. It has symbols, numbers, phonetic spell of someone with bad pronunciation. I almost gave up. His sections I often had to go over words several times, sounding things out. It took me out of the story.
It was 1/2 for
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have. 2 for too, two or to.For example Wel, that woz thi ferry. instead of Well, that was the theory.
I was a little disappointed by the ending.
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LibraryThing member SChant
Couldn't get past the irritating language - didn't finish.
LibraryThing member hasko
As with Banks' other book I read--Excession--this one is a good read but still slightly disappointing. Banks implies so much in order to give the narration epic depth, that ultimately it feels like he's unable to deliver. Nevertheless, both books have managed to keep me enthralled to the last page.
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Now, isn't that odd? Show Less
LibraryThing member ansate
Overall, I liked it. It was a page turner, the pacing was good, it is very, very clever. There are two things I didn't like about it, and I found them distracting while reading. (mild spoilers)
**** mild spoilers ****
1. Fuck this dialect shit. it does not add to the story. we do not have some magic
**** mild spoilers ****
1. Fuck this dialect shit. it does not add to the story. we do not have some magic
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moment where his brain being differntm makes all the difference 2. Yay! Two female characters. Boo! Let's go our of the way to point out that both were men in the past. Show Less
LibraryThing member Clevermonkey
Non-Culture book set on an imperiled, decadent far-future Earth. Told from various viewpoints, including a character who writes phonetically - so all of those chapters are too! Imagines a cyberspace that has existed for so long, it has become "natural", with its own ecology and inhabitants.
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Excellent characters as in most of Banks' works, and a tight, fast-paced story. Show Less
LibraryThing member kukkurovaca
While the future English is....annoying, the book is enjoyable.
LibraryThing member name99
This was a truly spectacular Banks book, my favorite so far.
I will admit that the ending was disappointing if one expected a "classical" sort of ending, if one treated the book as a sort of mystery to be unravelled.
But if one simply accepts it for what it is, a truly gripping story taking place in
I will admit that the ending was disappointing if one expected a "classical" sort of ending, if one treated the book as a sort of mystery to be unravelled.
But if one simply accepts it for what it is, a truly gripping story taking place in
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this future world that is never fully explained to us, it works extremely well. Show Less
LibraryThing member Clurb
I have to admit to being disappointed with the storyline to this one, having come at it expecting the usual Banks brilliance. If nothing else, read it for the phonetic sections and marvel at how quickly your brain compensates and allows you to race through it.
LibraryThing member pauliharman
This Banks book is notorious for a quarter of it being written phonetically. It does aid the characterisation of that narrator and has a somewhat weak in-story reason but otherwise it's a little unnecessary - a bit of a flimsy excuse for a stylistic experiment. Nevertheless it does not adversely
The novel itself is otherwise a bit of a let-down. A future Earth society needs to escape an approaching cosmic disaster but, typically for humans, is spending too much time blamestorming and not enough working out how to use the lifeboat technology left behind by the uplifted/sublimed majority of the human race. The ending is a bit of a deus ex machina - the Feersum Endjinn of the title - but you can't really say you weren't warned.
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affect the reading experience too much, you soon get used to it. Reading some parts aloud helps until you learn the new spellings. The novel itself is otherwise a bit of a let-down. A future Earth society needs to escape an approaching cosmic disaster but, typically for humans, is spending too much time blamestorming and not enough working out how to use the lifeboat technology left behind by the uplifted/sublimed majority of the human race. The ending is a bit of a deus ex machina - the Feersum Endjinn of the title - but you can't really say you weren't warned.
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LibraryThing member Brent_McDougal
I found this book to be exciting and fast paced but at the same time epic in scale. The phonetic spelling of one the characters was frustrating at first but I got used to it by the second chapter or so, don't let it turn you off from a great book
LibraryThing member louiserb
This was a tough read, especially with whole chapters handed over to no-talk mix of Glaswegian-Aberdonian nonesense.
LibraryThing member livingtech
Not sure why I didn't rate this a 5 the first time. It's the first Banks novel I read (I believe), and it's responsible for getting me "into" the author, as well as the art of Michael Whalen, who painted the beautiful cover. I am in the midst of re-reading it, only because I'd run out of steam on
Edit: finished it, was not disappointed. If you can get past the one plot line that is written in its own English (definitely difficult to read), then this is one of Banks' better books, IMO.
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the other novel I was reading, and wanted a "sure thing". It's sucked me back in, and I'm definitely finding it quite enjoyable the second time through. (Though it likely helps that it's been long enough that I remember basically nothing about the plot from the first time.)Edit: finished it, was not disappointed. If you can get past the one plot line that is written in its own English (definitely difficult to read), then this is one of Banks' better books, IMO.
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LibraryThing member -sunny-
Definitely a worthwhile read. The setting was unusual--a castle built as if for giants, a landscape more than proper architecture; and then the virtual world of the Crypt, where life continues after death, and which is a strange place indeed. The characters are rather strange as well--for example,
And, I'm sure others could explain better than I can. In any case, the best thing to do is just to read the book. This is the first of Mr. Banks' novels I've read, though I've had a number of them lined up for a while. I'll have to read some more of his work in the new future, based on my enjoyment of this book.
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a talking ant named Ergates, friend of a boy named Bascule, whose sections of narration are spelled phonetically, which takes a little getting used to, but his 'voice' comes through distinctly. With the approaching doom of Earth, and without a means to evacuate its population, the only hope is high inside the 'fast-tower'--but though previous attempts have been made to ascend it, the way is blocked and no one has yet succeeded. And, I'm sure others could explain better than I can. In any case, the best thing to do is just to read the book. This is the first of Mr. Banks' novels I've read, though I've had a number of them lined up for a while. I'll have to read some more of his work in the new future, based on my enjoyment of this book.
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LibraryThing member -sunny-
Definitely a worthwhile read. The setting was unusual--a castle built as if for giants, a landscape more than proper architecture; and then the virtual world of the Crypt, where life continues after death, and which is a strange place indeed. The characters are rather strange as well--for example,
And, I'm sure others could explain better than I can. In any case, the best thing to do is just to read the book. This is the first of Mr. Banks' novels I've read, though I've had a number of them lined up for a while. I'll have to read some more of his work in the new future, based on my enjoyment of this book.
Show More
a talking ant named Ergates, friend of a boy named Bascule, whose sections of narration are spelled phonetically, which takes a little getting used to, but his 'voice' comes through distinctly. With the approaching doom of Earth, and without a means to evacuate its population, the only hope is high inside the 'fast-tower'--but though previous attempts have been made to ascend it, the way is blocked and no one has yet succeeded. And, I'm sure others could explain better than I can. In any case, the best thing to do is just to read the book. This is the first of Mr. Banks' novels I've read, though I've had a number of them lined up for a while. I'll have to read some more of his work in the new future, based on my enjoyment of this book.
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LibraryThing member scodenton
Honestly, just read it. Utterly, speechlessly incredible. What's more, Iain managed to preempt text-speak by about a decade whilst simultaneously building a world that was clearly the inspiration for The Matrix, but to a deeper level of complexity and intrigue - bundled in with typical Banksian
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humour. A timeless classic. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 1994)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1994
Physical description
279 p.; 5.2 inches
ISBN
1857232739 / 9781857232738