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Transition

Orbit

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Average customer rating: 3.5 stars

Huge Mess, Big Disappointment

The non-linear, multi-character, multi-thread plot is distracting and exhausting, and after about a hundred pages, I just didn't care anymore. And by the end of the book, I was scanning hard. I bought this book because I loved "The Algebraist", but reading this mess is like wading waist deep through a swamp in the dark. There are a few golden nuggets here and there but, by and large, it's not worth the effort.

a failure

I've read a lot of Iain Banks books in the last couple years, and this is the first one that wasn't amazing. This books is not only less than amazing, it is, actually, terrible.
The characters are all obvious stereotypes. There are extended monologues where these characters explain their identity directly to you, the reader - and then most of those characters are just dropped from the storyline.
The plot ranges from nebulous to pointless. No character seems to have any particular motivations, so the story lurches along towards a climax for its own sake.
Everyone has sex with everyone else, for no apparent reason.
The science fiction elements of the story are half-baked and unconvincing. It is hard to believe that the same author who created the Culture series and "The Algebraist" would have left such gaping inconsistencies in the descriptions of the use of any technology, but there it is.
Rather than resolving mysteries, the story arc just piles on more and more deus ex machina.
The book even seems to have some sort of political message about 9/11 hysteria, but despite all the tactless "Christian Terrorist" scenes and descriptions of torture, there didn't seems to be any *particular* point to the whole thing - which makes it feel like those elements were thrown in just for the tabloid value.
This books is so unlike any other book by the author that I've seen, I cannot help but assume that this text was actually an early draft of a better novel, stolen from his files and published without his permission.

A Transition from Entertaining to Droll Compulsive Rambling...

One of the few books that I'm going to review before 'finishing' the book(about 10% remains)... Takes a very simple yet profound and always fascinating 'theme' of (alternate realities), and then muddles itself into monotony and gimmicks with revolving 'character' chapters. If it is meant to carry a tone of 'schizophrenia' it succeeds in the 'blunt affect' part of it. Of course when you reach a level of commercial success, you have every right to churn out a 'buck'. Figure with 'Matter' came out 2008, and this book shortly thereafter, it must be rushed and treated with less care. Not a single character in the book is likeable, perhaps that can be a reflection of 'reality', but in fiction, you need a likeable character, at least one. And then there's the blatant preaching of the author's viewpoint on predominant social regimes, which makes me feel hungover before I've even had a dirty martini and its salty and metallic taste. Now that I've had one, I just had to write this review.

Hopefully, the last 10% of the book will surprise me in some way, please, in anyway... something good, or perhaps, something even more sh--tty then the rest of the book occurs in the final chapters.

Some Weaknesses in Plotting

I liked this book. I came close to loving it, but there were some serious inconsistencies in the plot. First of all, there are a number of viewpoint characters: Adrian, a narcissistic financier, Madame d'Ortalan, a power hungry sociopath, Patient 8262, who is hiding in a mental hospital, Mrs. Mulverhill, a brilliant rebel, and most of all, the Transitionist (Temudjin Oh), a brilliant, cynical but basically idealistic assassin. Madame d'Ortolan has come to control the Central Council of the Concern, an organization that has the power to "flit" or transition their consciousnesses from body to body, world to world. They profess to use this power in order to keep the various societies on an even keel. Mrs. Mulverhill has discovered that the sub-text to the Concern's concerns, at least since its takeover by Madame d'Ortolan, is to keep humanity from discovering, and then presumably losing out to, alien races.

What are the problems? For one thing, the members of the Concern need a drug--septus--in order to transition, but what is it? Where does it actually come from? How was it invented and discovered. We never find out. They transfer their minds from body to body, always leaving their bodies behind, but then how do they manage to always keep their vials of septus on their persons when they transition? At one point, Temudjin Oh and Mrs Mulverhill are sitting in a hot tub on an Earth that has been scoured of life by a cosmic catastrophe. The Concern has discovered the world and use it as a base--but if there is no life, then there are no people there into whom they can transition. So how do they get there? What is going on in the hospital where Patient 8262 is confined? There are implications that the answers involve the Concern, but we never do find out. Mrs. Mulverhill states at one point that she will not stoop to Madame d'Ortolan's level of casual murder, then, after she has won, she very casually, and without any apparent necessity, does so. There are other inconsistencies, or at least mysteries, that make this book more annoying than it should have been and I get the sense that at times the author is either going through the motions or he's lost control over his material. Still, Iain M. Banks is always worth reading. At his weakest, he's better than almost every other writer out there. I just wish it was a little better.

Complex ideas delivered well

You have to love a book that uses great storytelling to communicate complex ideas, such as the "many worlds" theory. Rich enough to keep the experienced reader interested, but not clever for the sake of being clever. The story pulls you along instead of pushing you. Always telling when your enjoyment increases as the book progresses.