Author | Iain M. Banks |
---|---|
Audio read by | Peter Kenny |
Country | Scotland |
Language | English |
Series | The Culture |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Orbit |
Publication date | September 13, 1990 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 352 |
ISBN | 0-356-19160-5 |
OCLC | 59159282 |
Preceded by | The Player of Games |
Followed by | The State of the Art |
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Page 3 GAO-05-464 Taser Weapons Results in Brief The seven law enforcement agencies we contacted have established use-of-force policies, training requirements, operational protocols, and safety procedures to help ensure the proper use of Tasers. Use of Weapons is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1990. It is the third novel in the Culture series. Plot introduction. The narrative takes the form of a biography of a man called Cheradenine Zakalwe, who was born outside of the Culture but. Selected by an adversary for use in low -tech, relatively inexpensive weapons. Many more are potentially available through genetic engineering or chemical synthesis. Biological weapons are far more easily obtained and used than nuclear weapons. They actually may be more easily produced and used than conventional explosive weapons.
Use of Weapons is a science fictionnovel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1990. It is the third novel in the Culture series.[1]
Plot introduction[edit]
The narrative takes the form of a biography of a man called Cheradenine Zakalwe, who was born outside of the Culture but was recruited into it by Special Circumstances agent Diziet Sma to work as an operative intervening in less advanced civilizations. The novel recounts several of these interventions and Zakalwe's attempts to come to terms with his own past.[1]
Plot summary[edit]
The book is made up of two narrative streams, interwoven in alternating chapters. The numbers of the chapters indicate which stream they belong to: one stream is numbered forward in words (One, Two ...), while the other is numbered in reverse with Roman numerals (XIII, XII ...). The story told by the former moves forward chronologically (as the numbers suggest) and tells a self-contained story, while the latter is written in reverse chronology with each chapter successively earlier in Zakalwe's life.[2] Further complicating this structure is a prologue and epilogue set shortly after the events of the main narrative, and many flashbacks within the chapters.
The forward-moving narrative stream deals with the attempts of Diziet Sma and a drone named Skaffen-Amtiskaw (of Special Circumstances, a division of Contact) to re-enlist Zakalwe for another job. He must make contact with Beychae, an old colleague, in a politically unstable star system to further the aims of the Culture in the region. The payment that Zakalwe demands is the location of a woman, named Livueta. The backward-moving narrative stream describes earlier jobs that Zakalwe has performed for the Culture, ultimately returning to his pre-Culture childhood with his two sisters (Livueta and Darckense) and a boy his age named Elethiomel whose father has been imprisoned for treason.
As the two streams of the narrative conclude, it emerges that Elethiomel and Zakalwe commanded two opposing armies in a bloody civil war. Elethiomel took Darckense hostage before finally having her killed and her bones and skin made into a chair, to be sent to Zakalwe, who attempted suicide upon receiving it.
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After the successful extraction of Beychae, a severely wounded Zakalwe is taken back to his homeworld to see Livueta. She rejects him and reveals that 'Cheradenine Zakalwe' is in fact Elethiomel who had stolen the real Zakalwe's identity after he had killed himself during the civil war. Elethiomel suffers an aneurysm and Skaffen-Amtiskaw performs surgery in an attempt to save him; it is left unspecified whether Elethiomel survives.
The epilogue is a continuation of the prologue. Whether the story told by these 'bookends' takes place prior to, or after, Zakalwe/Elethiomel suffers an aneurysm, is not immediately obvious. The clue that it takes place not long after is 'Zakalwe pushing his hand through long hair that isn't there any more …'[3]
History[edit]
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According to Banks, he wrote a much longer version of the book in 1974, long before any of his books (science fiction or otherwise) were published.[4] The book had an even more complicated structure ('It was impossible to comprehend without thinking in six dimensions') but already introduced the Culture as background for the story of Cheradenine Zakalwe.[4] Realising that his intended structure was a 'fatal flaw', not least because it demanded the story's climax appear exactly half-way through, Banks moved on to write Against a Dark Background instead.[5] The book's cryptic acknowledgement credits friend and fellow science fiction author Ken MacLeod with the suggestion 'to argue the old warrior out of retirement' (to rewrite the old book) and further credits him with suggesting 'the fitness programme' (the new structure).[4] MacLeod makes use of similar structures in his own novels, most notably in The Stone Canal.
Reception[edit]
In 1990 Use of Weapons was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award. In 2012 it was selected for Damien Broderick's book Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010.[6]
Commentary[edit]
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Use of Weapons was voted the Best sci-fi film never made by the readers of The Register in 2011.[7]
See also[edit]
- Banks' Surface Detail, in which Zakalwe also appears under an alias.
- Banks' The State of the Art, in which Diziet Sma and the drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw are two of the main characters in the novella that lent its title to the story collection.
Bibliography[edit]
- Use of Weapons, Iain M. Banks, London: Orbit, 1990, ISBN0-356-19160-5, ISBN0-7088-8358-3, ISBN0-7088-8350-8, ISBN1-85723-135-X (UK), ISBN0-553-29224-2 (US)
References[edit]
- ^ abGerald Jonas (1992-05-03). 'Science Fiction'. The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-15.
- ^John Gribbin (1991-11-30). 'Review: Time waits for no author'. NewScientist. Retrieved 2008-05-15.
- ^'Iain M Banks Q&A'. The Guardian. 11 Sep 2000. Retrieved 2019-09-26.
- ^ abcNick Gevers. 'Cultured futurist Iain M. Banks creates an ornate utopia'. Interview. Science Fiction Weekly. Archived from the original on 2008-05-06. Retrieved 2008-05-15.
- ^Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks, 4 Aug 2012, The Guardian
- ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2013-04-26. Retrieved 2013-05-17.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^Use of Weapons declared best sci-fi film never made, By Lester Haines, 11 May 2011, The Register
External links[edit]
- Use of Weapons title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Use of Weapons Review, Review Date: 05 March 1997, SFF.net
Use Of Weapons Pdf
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Use_of_Weapons&oldid=917984452'
Iain M Banks's novel Use of Weapons has a narrative structure that, if it were not a work of science fiction, would qualify it as the most 'literary' of literary fiction. A sequence of numbered chapters (One, Two, Three …) tells the story of a virtuous if inwardly tormented soldier of fortune, Cheradenine Zakalwe, who has been hired by the apparently benevolent 'Culture' as its agent. In some far distant future, where interstellar travel is a cinch, he intervenes, often violently, to prevent even worse violence.
An expert with weapons, he is a kind of weapon himself. Recruited by a serenely humorous representative of the Culture called Diziet Sma (the weirdness of everybody's names is a signifier of their remoteness from us in time and space), his main mission is to travel to an obscure planet and kidnap a retired political leader who has the power to prevent an impending galactic war.
Meanwhile, in a second sequence of chapters, headed by Roman numerals in reverse order (XIII, XII, XI …), we are given episodes from Zakalwe's past. Often these appear to be accounts of missions that have taxed to an extreme his capacity to survive. Over many years, he has been burned and blistered and variously wounded in the service of his sublimely distant, apparently all-knowing masters. Occasionally he has taken time out for contemplation, in one episode finding sensual fulfilment with a lover who composes beautiful but unintelligible poetry on some out-of-the-way planet, but he has always come back to fighting.
The two narrative sequences are interleaved, so that the 'now' chapters alternate with the 'then' chapters. As the former narrative sequence moves onwards with the gusto of an adventure (will he succeed, against the odds, in getting his charge to his destination? How will he be rewarded?) the latter narrative sequence moves further and further backwards in time. There is a design to this, of course, and any skilled reader will infer that these diverging narratives must also be converging.
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We know that the climax of the adventure story will not make sense until we have gone far back into the protagonist's past to discover something. And here is the twist: in the last of the conventionally numbered chapters we find out that our hero (brave, rueful, suffering) is not the man we thought he was.
As plain 'Iain Banks', our author began his career with The Wasp Factory, a novel whose dénouement brought a shocking twist, in which our assumptions about the protagonist were overturned. Use of Weapons comparably shows us near its conclusion that our beliefs about its main character were wrong. His virtue has its origins in guilt. Yet, though the twist may surprise us (and therefore I cannot say what it is), we surely know that it is coming.
This kind of trick has its literary precedents. Dickens's last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, has a mysterious hero, John Rokesmith, who turns out to be someone different from the person we were told he was. Yet the revelation of his true identity will surprise only an inattentive reader. If a narrative twist is going to be satisfying, it has to be prepared for: pleasure comes from the recognition that we might have guessed, even if we did not. A radical correction of our assumptions must seem planned, not arbitrary.
On the many SF blogs and websites that discuss Banks's fiction, the 'fairness' (or otherwise) of the twist at the end of Use of Weapons is hotly debated. His defenders point out that his novel signals its own concealed explanation with its narrative structure. 'It was all he could do to keep the memories at bay.' The hero's unexplained flashes of memory guide us back to 'another time and another place … where four children had played together in a huge and wonderful garden, but had seen their idyll destroyed with gunfire'.
The reaching through time is an understandably lengthy process when Zakalwe's own sense of time is peculiarly stretched. By unspecified processes of rejuvenation, he has already lived for hundreds of years, his body parts frequently replaced and his body rejuvenated. (Even being beheaded on one of his missions does not put an end to him: his body is simply 'regrown'.)
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Banks has to give you the sense that his protagonist has had more living – more memories – to burden him than we do. Some of his fragmentary recollections must be clues. (What about his obsession with chairs and people who make chairs? When will this be explained?)
The clue is also in the novel's title. In case we were comfortable with the hero's cheerful relish for military hardware (he is a connoisseur of plasma guns) we find out what has made him the tireless warrior in search of a good cause that he has become. It is all a search for atonement. Men who like weapons have some demon from the past pursuing them.
• John Mullan is professor of English at University College London