The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks

The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks. San Francisco & Portland: Night Shade Books, 2005. ISBN: 1-59780-026-0

According to the cover jacket, this book received a Hugo nomination for best novel. The Hugos are the SciFi equivalent of the Oscars. I'm afraid I wouldn't have given the book quite that high a recommendation, myself. It's well written, with an interesting premise, but the overall storyline is a bit too convoluted, too complex, too ornate, if you will, for my taste. Plus there are far too many words to get through.

The basic story involves a quest for a fabled bit of information, which may or may not exist, but if it does, has the potential to turn civilization upside down. The civilization of which we speak is a galaxy wide confluence of many intelligent species, of which humankind is a relative newcomer. The information is in the hands of the Dwellers, a gas-giant species, many of whom live at an enormously slower pace than other species.

To interact with them requires slowing down one's metabolism until days seem to whip past in seconds. People who do this for a career are called Slow Seers, and our main character, Fassin Taak, is one such. He hopes to find this hidden bit of information, which will supposedly lead to an entirely secret network of wormholes, providing an alternate means of transport around the galaxy.

In the meantime, another political entity has gained wind of the secret, and is planning an invasion of Taak's home world and planetary system. Headed by a thoroughly evil monster of a human, “the Archimandrite Luseferous, warrior priest of the Starveling Cult of Leseum9 IV and effective ruler of one hundred and seventeen stellar systems, forty-plus inhabited planets, numerous significant artificial immobile habitats an many hundreds of civilian capital ships . . .” Here is a further description of this utterly evil villain:

Luseferous had long, sheen-black straight hair and a naturally pale complexion which had been skilfully augmented to make his skin nearly pure white. His eyes were artificially large, but just close enough to congenitally possible for people to be unsure whether they had been augmented or not. The whites beyond the black irises were a deep, livid red, and every one of his teeth had been carefully replaced with a pure, clear diamond, giving his mouth an appearance which varied from bizarre, mediaeval toothlessness to startling, glistening brilliance, entirely depending on angle and light.

But that's not the half of it. What makes Luseferous truly disgusting (apart from the fact that he routinely tortures people, destroys entire cities or planets just to make a point, and appears to be a sociopathic sadist of the worst sort), are some of the other modifications he's had made to his person. Here's the relevant passage:

Luseferous had had his genitals enhanced in all sorts of ways. One improvement was that he carried glands inside his body which allowed him to produce many different secretions which his ejaculate could then carry into the bodies of others (but whose effects he was proof against, obviously), including irritants, hallucinogens, cannabinoids, capsainoids, sleeping draughts and truth serums. He went briefly into the little-death little-trance, the petit mal which allowed him to select one of these, and chose the last-mentioned, the truth drug.

He took the girl anally; it was faster-acting that way . . .

It . . . emerged that she thought he was horribly ancient and weird-looking and a frightening, sick-minded old sadist and she absolutely hated being fucked by him.

He thought about inseminating her with thanaticin, or employing one of the physical options his remade penis made possible: the shaved horsetail, perhaps. Or just injecting her into the vacuum and watching her die.

In the end, Luseferous decided that letting her live with such constant degredation was punishment enough. He'd always said he preferred being despised, after all.

He would make her his favorite. Probably wise to put her on suicide watch, too.

Anyway, that such an evil individual is allowed to escape virtually scot free, and gets no comeuppance, is allowed to live, even, let alone escape back across the expanse of space from which he came, is profoundly unsatisfying. Especially when the Dwellers had him well within their sights, having just destroyed his oversized flagship, the Luseferous VII, and all 20 of his planet-busting bombships with which he was threatening them.

To not have Luseferous himself blown up and destroyed contravenes all the usual conventions of storytelling. Horribly evil people are supposed to come to horribly evil ends. And while I suppose that for “sophisticated” readers or writers, these kinds of conventions are designed to be broken, it is frustrating when it happens for no particular reason that can be determined. There is no element to the plot that requires or benefits from his escape. It just happens.

Still, Archimandrite Luseferous takes up only a relatively small percentage of the pages of this book. His is by no means the primary focus nor—fortunately—are we forced to spend much time with him. Quoting these little bits about him really do create a mostly false impression of the book as a whole. Most of it is spent on Fassin Taak, and his quest to find the hidden piece of crucial information. The quest takes him halfway around the galaxy and back. To tell you whether or not he succeeds would be too much of a spoiler. Suffice it to say that in the end, the story just kind of peters out.

So, my verdict? Only slightly more than marginally recommended for all general science fiction readers. Especially if you don't have anything more pressing to read.