Iain M Banks Hydrogen Sonata

[Mlenk]

Has anyone here managed to get a hold of a copy yet? I'd be interested to know what other long-time Culture readers think about his new book. Mine doesn't come in for a few days.

[Terralthra]

Downloads onto my Kindle in 4 hours. Will let you know shortly thereafter. =]

[lPeregrine]

Amazon shipped it early, so I got it and read it a while ago. Overall I liked it, it's still not as good as Use of Weapons, but IMO it was better than Matter and at least as good as Surface Detail. My main complaint is that an important piece of information is revealed way too early, so the ending is kind of disappointing. It's still worth reading though, I got it and didn't go to bed until I finished it.
Spoiler

Seriously, what was Banks thinking when he gave away the ending before the book had hardly even started? They spend the whole book chasing after the old guy, and it turns out the mystery is just "yeah, it happened like that"? And then they don't even do anything with the information after spending all that effort to confirm what they already knew? It's a much more satisfying story if you just delete that short bit where they say the prophet guy was a fraud and an experiment in social engineering early on and leave it at the generic "most people don't take it all literally, of course" statement until they find the old guy.

[Terralthra]

Spoiler

Seriously, what was Banks thinking when he gave away the ending before the book had hardly even started? They spend the whole book chasing after the old guy, and it turns out the mystery is just "yeah, it happened like that"? And then they don't even do anything with the information after spending all that effort to confirm what they already knew? It's a much more satisfying story if you just delete that short bit where they say the prophet guy was a fraud and an experiment in social engineering early on and leave it at the generic "most people don't take it all literally, of course" statement until they find the old guy.

Spoiler

Because whether or not the Book of Truth was "true," wasn't the point. The point was about secrets, and knowledge, and what people/beings/Minds will do to acquire secrets, keep secrets, hide secrets, etc. Not "what is the secret?" That would be a straightforward, and boring, mystery novel. The Septame's interactions with the Marshal who deduced that he'd assassinated the President made this point clear.

[lPeregrine]

Spoiler

Because whether or not the Book of Truth was "true," wasn't the point. The point was about secrets, and knowledge, and what people/beings/Minds will do to acquire secrets, keep secrets, hide secrets, etc. Not "what is the secret?" That would be a straightforward, and boring, mystery novel. The Septame's interactions with the Marshal who deduced that he'd assassinated the President made this point clear.

Spoiler

Sure, I see the theme, and also the idea that the inertia of society is too much for a mere thing like truth to change, but I think it really undermined the whole "find the old guy" plot. I think it would have been a lot better to leave some of the secret hidden until the end, with conflicting hints about it might be but never explicitly saying it until the end. It's still a pointless secret and says all the same things about having secrets for the sake of having secrets, but at least the reader has a reason to care about the search for it.

Plus, it kind of undermines the theme of secrets as well. Everyone knows that the Book of Truth wasn't the sacred word of god, the Minds easily find out that it was an experiment, and the only "secret" the old guy has is "yep, that's the secret". Even before the ending it seems like it's less about keeping or learning secrets and more about finding clearer proof of something that's common knowledge already.

[Terralthra]

Spoiler

Sure, I see the theme, and also the idea that the inertia of society is too much for a mere thing like truth to change, but I think it really undermined the whole "find the old guy" plot. I think it would have been a lot better to leave some of the secret hidden until the end, with conflicting hints about it might be but never explicitly saying it until the end. It's still a pointless secret and says all the same things about having secrets for the sake of having secrets, but at least the reader has a reason to care about the search for it.

Plus, it kind of undermines the theme of secrets as well. Everyone knows that the Book of Truth wasn't the sacred word of god, the Minds easily find out that it was an experiment, and the only "secret" the old guy has is "yep, that's the secret". Even before the ending it seems like it's less about keeping or learning secrets and more about finding clearer proof of something that's common knowledge already.

Spoiler

I'm not sure I agree. The "secret" is spoiled, sure, but only if you believe the 14th Regiment officer who briefs Cossont. Given that the source of the information is snuffed in the prologue, and everyone after that is uncertain as to the secret's veracity, I'm not sure I suffered the lack of suspense as you did.

Plus, I'm still not sure how the Book of Truth is a "fake." It was a book that laid out, as described, mostly scientific information with some basic morality thrown in. It appeared prophetic, because it described science the Gzilt didn't have yet, but what does it mean for a book of "Here's how the universe works," written in a non-instructional format, to be fake?

[lPeregrine]

Spoiler

I'm not sure I agree. The "secret" is spoiled, sure, but only if you believe the 14th Regiment officer who briefs Cossont. Given that the source of the information is snuffed in the prologue, and everyone after that is uncertain as to the secret's veracity, I'm not sure I suffered the lack of suspense as you did.

Spoiler

I don't know, maybe it stands out more to some people than others? I spent the whole book with the "social engineering experiment" theory in mind as what everyone knew and assumed that the secret was going to be that it did happen like that, but that there was going to be more to it that hadn't been revealed yet. I expected that once they finally got QiRia's information it would confirm what everyone knew, but fill in some significant details beyond "yeah, it happened that way". So when he didn't really have anything to add it made that whole part of the plot feel like kind of a waste of time.

I guess if you dismiss it as "just speculation" after it's first mentioned it's less prominent in your mind and the ending is more satisfying?

Spoiler

Plus, I'm still not sure how the Book of Truth is a "fake." It was a book that laid out, as described, mostly scientific information with some basic morality thrown in. It appeared prophetic, because it described science the Gzilt didn't have yet, but what does it mean for a book of "Here's how the universe works," written in a non-instructional format, to be fake?

Spoiler

This was mentioned a few times, pretty much all of the Gzlit knew that it wasn't "real" in the sense of being the revelation of god (after all, there are plenty of advanced civilizations going around interfering), they just had a nagging sense of superiority because their book of fairy tales came with useful information, while all those other civilizations spent thousands of years obsessing over badly written works of fiction. That's why in the end they decide not to reveal the information, it just didn't mean anything that it was a "fake". It filled its role in Gzlit society, so it was as "real" as it needed to be.

[cosmicalstorm]

I recently went back to Banks after a four year period of avoidance, these days I've been spoiled with shock-level 4 sci-fi such as Greg Egan so reading Banks isn't as satisfying as it used to be. But still, both Matter and Surface Detail were really good so I'm definitely going to look into the Hydrogen Sonata real soon.

[andrewgpaul]

So, what exactly does "shock-level 4 sci fi" mean? What count as levels 1 - 3, and how high does the scale go?

[Vendetta]

I was also wondering that..

Is it the type that comes with a miniature M Night Shyamalan to pop up and shout "What a tweeeeest!" at appropriate moments?

[Vendetta]

Spoiler

I don't know, maybe it stands out more to some people than others? I spent the whole book with the "social engineering experiment" theory in mind as what everyone knew and assumed that the secret was going to be that it did happen like that, but that there was going to be more to it that hadn't been revealed yet. I expected that once they finally got QiRia's information it would confirm what everyone knew, but fill in some significant details beyond "yeah, it happened that way". So when he didn't really have anything to add it made that whole part of the plot feel like kind of a waste of time.

I guess if you dismiss it as "just speculation" after it's first mentioned it's less prominent in your mind and the ending is more satisfying?

Spoiler

I think that getting hung up on the precise nature of the secret and the fact that it's basically common knowledge from the start of the story (it's repeatedly mentioned that all it is is confirmation of something that's basically been known or commonly assumed for thousands upon thousands of years) misses the point of what the book is actually about, and certainly misses the trick that it's pulling.

Part of the motivation behind this book was to expand upon the concept of the Sublime within the Culture 'verse, as it had been mentioned repeatedly in the series but never really in focus. But what actually happens is that the story chases after this incidental detail regarding a civilisation about to sublime that probably isn't going to mean anything on a civilisational level, and people basically carry on exactly as they were with partying, scheming, or whatever gets them going despite the fact that, we are told, these are soon to be irrelevant to their new Sublime selves. We get no actual information about the Sublime, and nor do the Minds, despite that being the real reason that they're interested.

Alongside that we're dropped the occasional reminder that the Sublime operates so differently that it can't be described in terms comprehensible even to a Mind. So they, and we with them, are chasing after these irrelevant details at the edges of the knowledge we truly desire because what we want to know is unknowable within the framework of existence in which we want to know it.

The book is about the desire to know something ineffable in concrete terms and how that can become a driving obsession that causes us to chase after things that aren't actually what we wanted to know, but are close enough for us to pretend. You could read it, if you wanted, as a critique of theology as a practise. Especially as it is given a religious element within the story. Theology, after all, can only deal in concrete details around the core of the subject.

Reading The Hydrogen Sonata makes me want to read The Name of the Rose again, which is also about the pursuit and hiding of knowledge.

[Terralthra]

Well put, Vendetta. You got at the core of what I was trying to get at, far more eloquently.