Use of Weapons

Iain M. Banks

Dec 2008 · Sold by Orbit

About this ebook

The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action.

The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought.

The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past.

Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, Use of Weapons is a masterpiece of science fiction.

The Culture Series
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata

Ratings and reviews

Not for me, I don't pretend to know everything, but I do know what what war is like, having been in one and survived it. The author makes assumptions about the human mind as if this were an essay on the painful experience of a soldier and in my assessment of this book he does not know squat.

The intertwined story structure is innovative, but it took me a while to read this, as I found myself putting it down whenever it was time to switch from one of the forward-moving present tense chapters to a backward-looking flashback chapter. Also, the twist at the end and the buildup to it failed to grab me. Once again, though, Banks' depiction of an agent for the Culture's Contact section provokes worthwhile reflection upon similar characters in our own reality.

By far my least favorite Culture book. Did not flow well and the premise is fatally flawed, even by sci-fi standards. Too many loose ends and unexplainable plot twists.

About the author

Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.