Use of Weapons

I need to say upfront, don’t try to read this one in ten minute chunks over three weeks like I do most books, I tried that and had to restart from the beginning once I finally sat down and gave it real hours. The structure demands it, one timeline runs forward through Zakalwe’s present, one runs backward through his past, and they’re closing in on each other toward the same point the whole time. It sounds like a gimmick described that way, it isn’t, once the two threads meet you understand why Banks built it like this and not any simpler way.

I’ll admit, I finished the last chapter, sat there for a minute, then genuinely went and looked up a plot summary online just to confirm what I thought had happened actually happened. That’s not a knock, that’s the book doing exactly what it set out to do, the final reveal recontextualizes basically everything that came before it and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining the size of that shift.

Worth flagging honestly, Banks isn’t great at writing women in general across the Culture books, and this one doesn’t fully escape that, though it’s not egregious here either, more a background weakness than a dealbreaker. Zakalwe himself carries the book easily enough that it doesn’t sink the experience, his quiet moments do more work than his action scenes, which is a rare thing to pull off in space opera.

Five stars, my favorite Culture book so far, and I mean that as someone who came in expecting Player of Games to hold that spot.