Gotta admit, didn't see that coming ( )

10/10

We learn more of the Culture and its agents, especially in the person of Diziet Sma and her drone, Skaffen-Amtiskaw. The juxtaposition of their episodes and roles in the story with Zakalwe’s actions and memories was jarring at times, with a drastic contrast in both content and tone. This builds the depth and power of the narrative.

Although the time-hopping in Zakalwe’s story made it a little hard to follow, the story itself was compelling, brutal, and heartbreaking. ( )

Definitely going to read again, probably in 2012. ( )

Atrocious. A mess. Again fooled by the imbecilic reviews. The writing is not flowing at all. It is all what I hate about a book. ( )

From the four books of his that I’ve read, I get the impression that Ian M. Banks took a pessimistic view of human nature. Or perhaps he saw the potential for horror in humanity as more deserving of literary exploration than positive traits? ‘Use of Weapons’ is an extremely non-linear biography of ‘the man known as Cheradennine Zakalwe’, who goes by several names. For much of his life he works as an agent of the Culture, interfering to prevent, win, or lose wars according to their instructions. I found his actions, and the piecing together of his history, more interesting than him as a character. The final twist was to my mind rather an anticlimax, although I thought the 'prologue' at the end well-judged.

I found the world-building by far the most striking element of the novel. The background characters were generally far more compelling than Zakalwe, although he made quite a good point of view from which to explore new worlds. Banks differentiates planets and spaceships very neatly, whilst also making points about repeating patterns of human behaviour (the tendency to war, for the most part). The Culture itself remains something of a background enigma, which is pretty effective. Now and again, however, its perspective is advanced through debates on AI, for example. Such intrusions of philosophy were my favourite parts of the book. The many military action sequences were well-written but did not stand out so. What remained rather too mysterious to me was what (if anything) the worlds outside it thought of the Culture. Were they unable to discern that they were being meddled with? I liked the fact that humans within the Culture considered humans outside it to be aliens, as that seemed revealing.

In other words, it was not the central narrative of ‘Use of Weapons’ that gripped me, but rather the world-building at the edges. I was not very invested in Zakalwe or his many sufferings, though I did enjoy the challenge of placing events in some sort of linear sequence. The light relief interludes with Sma and her drone associate were very entertaining, so it was a pity that they nearly vanished during the second half of the book. ‘Use of Weapons’ will probably stay in my mind for a while, however I’m undecided whether I’ll read more Culture novels. I liked the complexity of this one, whilst disliking the central character. In that respect the experience was not unlike that of [b:Engleby|956719|Engleby|Sebastian Faulks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1428024164s/956719.jpg|2399286], although ‘Use of Weapons’ is much more thoughtful. ( )