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 Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
reviewed by Underview
Original appearance: FTL 7, Winter 1990
My main task this quarter was to read the new novel by lain M. Banks' Use of Weapons. This is the sort of book that makes wading through the rubbish worthwhile; lain M. Banks is a craftsman. It is easy to picture him in a forge, hating a piece of base metal over a white-hot flame. With heavy tongs he carries the metal to his anvil and hammers it into the general shape of a sword blade. He thrusts it back into the flame until it is once again malleable, then to the anvil to beat the metal flat, to fold it back upon itself. Many times the process is repeated, many times the metal is folded. Each time the craftsman examines it, then returns it to the flame. Every successive fold imparts strength and flexibility, so that the blade will not shatter under the strains of battle. Unlike a swordblade, the layers within 'Use of Weapons' are visible and can be individually examined. The tiny faults and flaws that have been worked into it, that give the novel its colour and flavour, are there for all to see. And although each part maybe dissected, the finished piece, the blade, is stronger than the sum of the individual elements. And so it should be with a novel, but all too seldom is. At is present as an almost straight-forward space opera, although thankfully the breathless delivery and continual 'sense of wonder' of that genre have been dispensed with. The alien settings and background details are described in a relatively matter-of-fact manner permitting the story to tell itself without encumbrances.
Our hero, Cheradenine Zakalwe (not a Bill or a George in sight in this universe), is an agent of the Culture, a group of extra-high-tech aliens with a penchant for meddling, albeit altruistically, in the affairs of other societies. The Culture have featured in Bank's two previous offerings Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games, but this novel stands alone without reference to them. As Zakalwe is a soldier, the meddling we are treated to is all of a military nature. His employers appear to treat him in a rather cavalier fashion, placing him on the losing side as often as not, and allowing him to be horribly mutilated (on one occasion he is pulled out of a mission minus his body from the neck down) in the course of his work. In return they have given him something akin to eternal youth and, most importantly considering the state in which he returns from the majority of his assignments, the best of advanced medical care (especially the time when he had to quit while he was a head).
This is a story failed with exotic weaponry of the ray-gun variety, huge interstellar spaceships and technology that is indistinguishable from magic. But at its code this always remains a novel about people, even though displaying all the trappings of hard SF. Over the course of the book, Zakalwe's past is revealed, interspersed non-chronologically through his latest mission. Slowly a picture of the man emerges, explaining his motives fully only at the very conclusion of the action.
If I have a criticism of the novel it is that the final revelation of the nature of the central character did not come as the surprise I assume Banks intended it to be. Nor had he explored deeply enough, the boyhood relationships that are revealed in the end to have moulded his adulthood. In fact the conclusion left me feeling that I knew less of the central character than I had assumed, and sacrificed a deeper exploration of Bank's central themes for a mild twist in the tail that wasn't one hundred percent effective. With that one small reservation (and it really is very small), I have to say that this is one of the most intelligently written, stimulating and satisfying SF novels I have had the good fortune to read in a long white. Perhaps not as far out on the cutting edge as one might have expected from a man whose debut was as powerful and different as The Wasp Factory, but within the compass of its ambition this is a superb achievement.
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