Use of Weapons

So, back to the Culture re-read. I kind of moved off it because I knew this one was next and I am always being told it is the best Culture novel. I didn't want to re-read it and find my previous impression of 'it's decent, but not the best' to be confirmed. And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened.
The themes of this one are the futility of searches for redemption and the futility of war. Pretty strong stuff and they come across very strongly in the book, provoking some thoughtful musing.
The Culture is Bank's so-called utopian society. Wilfully misinterpreted by deranged billionaires everywhere. For example, Banks is clear its the AI's that call the shots in the Culture and the humans are largely kept as pets. This book holds somewhat as a dark mirror up to the Culture as it is told from the perspective of one of the catspaws they use to nudge other Cultures towards the path of 'good'. There is an excellent riff on the fact that the Culture's interventionism always seems to nudge other societies towards becoming clones of the Culture. A very pointed jibe at colonialism.
I don't find this a 5 star book because there were, yet again, a few sequences of body horror that I just skip through. Not from squeamishness or anything, just because they are a little long and boring and a tad irrelevant in my opinion.
That's not to take away from the book as a whole, its a very strong '4.5' ish book, that I tore through in a day or so. I am highly unlikely to rate a Culture book as anything less than a strong recommend but this one the best? Not for me.

thoroughly enjoyed ‘Use of Weapons’ and would place it on par with ‘Player of Games’. I am, in truth, not so keen on guns-blazing sci-fi, so my enjoyment of ‘Use of Weapons’ was tempered by those aspects, though I enjoyed the anti-war sentiments it entertained in the books later stages. There was little political intrigue, and the book focused heavily on the character of Zakalwe, his psychology, his history, and on the various conflicts he had been active in – but his character is far from shallow. He is no token heroic figure. It was this aspect that I enjoyed the most – attempting to understand why Zakalwe functioned the way that he did, and Banks did a fantastic job of adding complexity to this main character without revealing too much. I was kept guessing right up until the end.

Banks also does a fantastic job of giving a sense of place to the various planets and systems we are lead through. Some have more flesh than others, but the various levels of development, the natures of the conflicts, and the situations in which Zakalwe finds himself are far from repetitive and highly imaginative. The danger here is always that, if the characterisation comes across as weak, then the reader has nothing to grip on to.

It’s also the first of his sci-fi books that have reached the level of horror I have experienced in his literary works. There’s a Cronenberg feel to the situations in ‘Use of Weapons’. Visceral, in some cases almost comic gore, a real blood spatter drama to some situations.