Surface Detail by Iain M Banks

1. This Culture novel strikes me as a solid book, and I can’t quite tell why I like it this much. It’s solid: the whole thing is well put together, well executed, an enjoyable read, but nothing really stands out much. There is no one thing Banks does exceedingly well here that I can marvel at and praise and ramble on about for pages and pages. But in a sense, that’s why I love this book so much: everything fits well together. This is a comfortable Banks, writing what he knows and doing it well.

2. Like much of Banks’ works, this novel is about international relations on the surface, and personal philosophy, relationships, and motivations on a deeper level.
—The science fiction theme here is Culture being betrayed by allies that imitate Culture to betray them. They’re little pan-human beings that are perfectly beautiful and childlike, but hide evil plots behind that facade. Including their imitation of Culture in order to frame Culture for some mischief they want to get up to.
—In essence, this is the applicable theme as well: the surface details don’t give the whole picture. Vepers, the main antagonist, is a perfect example of this: a popular, fiercely wealthy oligarch who uses his wealth to buy privacy and privilege in order to do whatever he wants—murder, rape, and double deal. But the rest of the main characters also hide behind facades: Led is tattooed to her atoms, never really being seen as a human being until she finds the Culture, but the novelty of that deeply upsets her; Prin turns into a hell demon in order to escape hell after posing as an inmate; Chay pretends to be a mother superior when she has not a religious belief in her body, finding peace through this subterfuge; Yime is a Special Circumstances plant in Quietus who has forgotten that she is SC; Vatueil has changed his mind in the virtual war over the hells and is a traitor time and time again; while Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints both pretends to be Torturer class when really it’s an Abominator class, and hides a heart of kindness behind a facade of brusque lack of political correctness. In these ways, and others, the main characters and most of the secondary ones hide behind constructed surface details in order to gain advantage over their situations.
—It’s the most conspiratorial of the Culture novels, so far—and there are multiple conspiracies on multiple sides. These tiny pan-humans aren’t the only group to hide things from another. Culture, at the end, hides their capabilities to allow the little pan-humans some success that the Culture wants, but still making it look like the pan-humans are the perpetrators.
—The point is to not trust things as they first appear to be. Banks gives both positive and negative examples of this hiding, not judging that people do it, just stating that they do and we better find a way to live with it. The book effectively uses this theme without telling the reader outright that this is the theme. Instead, these situations that I cataloged above show the theme adequately without Banks breaking into some melodramatic monologue illuminating the whole. Often, a book with a weak theme will only reveal its theme through the plot, but here it feels intentional due to how consistent it is in almost every situation. This “theme through showing” tactic is well done and might perhaps be the one thing that Banks does best within the book.

In Valley 308, which was part of the Thrice Flayed Footprint district of the Pavulean Hell, level three, there was an old-fashioned mill with a tall external over-shot wheel, powered by blood. It was part of the punishment of some of the virtual souls in that place that each day they be profusely bled for as long as they could without falling unconscious. There were many thousands of such unfortunates to be bled during each session and they were duly dragged screaming from their nearby pens by grotesquely formed, irresistibly powerful demons and strapped to canted iron tables with drains at their foot. These tables were arranged in serried ranks on the steep banks of the arid valley, which, had one been able to look at it from far enough above, would have been revealed as a ridge forming part of a truly gigantic footprint; hence the district’s name.

3. The characters are all very engaging here, through each having a positive and a negative main characteristic—and both are linked. Often the negative stems from the positive. Led, though bent on revenge, doubts her own ability to enact the revenge that consumes her desires. Prin is so profoundly affected by his experiences in hell that kidnapping, people showing up in his dreams to threaten him, threats to the lives or wellbeing of anybody he ever cared about—nothing fazes him anymore. Chay finds a way to live in hell, but is so changed that she chooses to not go back to the physical reality. Yime thinks highly of herself as this incredibly unique person who turned down SC for Quietus—but she isn’t and once she finds that out she never finds a place to truly belong again. Vatueil finds the side he believes in, but by doing so he betrays his old side and is never trusted again by either. Vepers throws monkey wrenches into everything, shakes things up in unexpected and interesting ways, but it’s all for his own benefit. These internal conflicts allow each character—and each section that focuses on a character—to be incredibly interesting. And Banks shifts back and forth between the characters at a perfect pace, keeping each scene succinct and important, with some rumination, but not so much it bogs the book down. Each of these main characters is allowed space to flourish and find footing in the reader’s mind. This effectively allows each character an interesting conflict that keeps Banks’ structure interesting all the way through.

4. Okay, by this point in the series, I expect the Banks structure of disparate situations and characters slowly converging before everything gets crazy. And Banks doesn’t disappoint. But the start was unexpected: the first three chapters end in three deaths. These three characters come back—two were in virtual worlds, of which one is reborn in the physical world and the other in another virtual world, while the last one was surprised by being reborn in Culture, where she had never been. All three rebirths end up being central parts of the novel, but it is strange when it happens, especially with Banks’ usual tactic of not naming characters right away. It made me think the novel was about death, not subterfuge. This bait and switch is unfortunate, but it does set up the novel nicely in terms of world building. I think this might be an inherent problem with Banks’ typical tactic: the first few chapters introduce the reader to the main characters by jumping between them, and are confusing because they do not immediately link together—though they did in Matter, which might be why that book stands on its own so well.

5. I loved this book. It’s a solid Culture novel and it works well in that context. But it also works well with the applicable theme of dealing with people who are hiding things behind surface details. The characters are all quite engaging and interesting while the story clips along nicely with a great mix of adventure and rumination. It’s not my favorite Culture novel, but I can’t quite figure out why.