In some ways, Look to Windward is representative of Iain M. Banks's other Culture novels. It starts with a completely misleading prologue and ends with a surprising and explanatory (perhaps overly explanatory) epilogue. It has Banks's tradmark multiple storylines and fractured narratives. It features some awe-inspiring feats of imagination: in this book, the mega-fauna that inhabit living, sentient spaces orbiting through the galaxy. [FN1] And, as with most of Banks's other interesting Culture novels, it stars an outsider--Quilan, a dinosaur-like alien who is an ambassador from a civilization only recently re-emerging from a devastating civil war.

What is so different about Look to Windward is that it mostly shuns the external wow factor of the Culture and instead focuses almost exclusively on the complex emotional substructure of its characters, with an effect I have not seen since Banks's early Culture novel, Player of Games. One of the characters under Banks's scrutiny in this novel is Quilan, an unwilling ambassador who carries with him the painful memory of his life's love, killed in a war that he soon learns was instigated by a mistake (albeit an innocent mistake) by the ever-meddling Culture. The other major character is the Masaq' Hub, one of the Culture's Minds, who long ago was a Culture warship that engaged in giga-murder on a scale that it has never forgotten.

The two are brought together by a particularly cruel if lovely bit of scientific imagery. Over eight hundred years ago, in another pointless war unwittingly entered into by the Culture, two suns were induced to supernova by the Culture's enemies (the Idirans, for those familiar with the Culture's history). Now, all these centuries later, the light from those supernovae has finally crawled its way to the Masaq' Orbital, and the Masaq' Hub has decided to commemorate the occasion of this tragedy by hosting a festival, so that the Orbital's residents may dance by "the light of ancient mistakes" (one of Banks's many felicitous phrases). Quilan has been invited to participate in the festival, a gesture of reconciliation by the Culture toward Quilan's civilization. But Quilan, sick of his now pointless life, has agreed to a plan by his superiors to sabotage the Masaq' Orbital--and cause the death of billions of Culture citizens. [FN2]

As usual, Banks's writing is superb, his prose so smooth it is almost effortless. Moreover, Banks has fortunately chosen to feature exactly the type of character he does best--the quiet, reserved, ironic gentleman (gentle-alien?) with a troubled past, unfailingly polite to everybody around him but nursing dark secrets in his heart. Banks's slightly formal prose and dialogue, sometimes stilted in other contexts, is perfectly suited to the melancholy narrative of Look to Windward. This is a novel about guilt and redemption, about anger and guilt, revenge and unbearable sorrow--emotions that prey on both Quilan and the Masaq' Hub. Banks deals with his subjects beautifully, if lightly; he does not so much plumb their depths as give us a glimpse of what life is like under such conditions. That he can give us such an affecting glimpse at all, however, is a testament to his skill, and to the power of Look to Windward.

[FN1] As interesting as these mega-fauna are, however, it is sadly indisputable that their story is almost completely peripheral and unnecessary to the main storyline involving Quilan and the Masaq' Hub.

[FN2] *Spoiler alert!* Although I'm not entirely certain of this, there seem to be some major suggestions that the conspiracy behind the destruction of the Masaq' Orbital in this book is the same cabal behind the rather inscrutable conspiracy in Excession. Well, that's fine to me; it sounds like Banks is working up to something big here. If Banks is seriously thinking about building up this conspiracy into something like a galaxy-shattering Culture civil war, I certainly hope he takes the time on a few more detours like Look to Windward.

Copyright © 2003 Steven Wu