The Hydrogen Sonata (Iain M. Banks)
30 October 2013
The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization.
An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.
Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted - dead, not alive. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely to prove its most perilous.
Average Rating:
Sinclair Manson (12 February 2014 21:11)
I haven't read any of the other Culture books, so I can't compare The Hydrogen Sonata to them. If, as seems to be the general consensus, some of the other Culture books are stronger than this one, then I certainly want to read them. I enjoyed reading this book and was really sorry to reach the end of it, no matter how satisfying the end might have been. It was crammed with ideas, ranging from the whimsical to the contemplative, and yet somehow avoided seeming jumbled or disjointed. It flitted effortlessly between the cosmic and the human. Finally, there's a coincidental neatness in a book with so much to say about mortality written so soon before the author's own demise. Life task complete.
Graham MacDonald (1 November 2013 16:15)
Another excellent slice of the Culture. Possibly not the best of the Culture novels so I can't really give it 5 starts but it's dammed close. Iain Banks manages to cram more ideas into one book than some authors manage over their entire career and it's all done in an effortless and extremely witty writing style that ensures the story hardly ever drags.
Basically, in this book, nothing really happens in terms of plot. A bunch of computers talk to each other and decide to go after a secret that we all know from the outset and then decide to keep it to themselves; but its not really so much about the plot as the ride that Iain Banks takes us on and its such a shame that it will be the last such ride. RIP Iain Banks.