Dear Iain,

It's been 10 years, and I don't know how much longer I can wait.

The millennium was new, the future seemed boundless and Look to Windward had just been published. We, your fans, were ecstatic to see a new novel from Iain M Banks. We had waited patiently as you conquered the world of "mainstream literature", knowing one day you would return to science fiction. And while we had read and loved your standalone SF novels, what we really wanted was a new story from the world of the Culture. You did not disappoint us.

Look to Windward fulfilled our highest expectations of the Culture of Iain M Banks, with its masterly fusion of SF "sense of wonder", sophisticated literary technique and engaging political commentary.

Set in the aftermath of a futile civil war in a caste-based society, the novel follows Quilan, a veteran soldier whose wife was killed in the conflict. Traumatised by grief, he is manipulated into undertaking a terrorist attack against the Culture, a more developed society whose interference sparked the war. Under the pretext of a diplomatic mission to negotiate with composer and political dissident Mahrai Ziller, Quilan confronts the civilisation he holds responsible for the destruction of his society and of his wife.

Look to Windward unfolds much like the symphonic composition at its heart, elements of plot, character and theme orchestrated to climax together at the story's powerful resolution. From its opening dedication – "For the Gulf War veterans" – the novel wears its political convictions on its sleeve. But if the events it describes have parallels with the tragic terrorist attacks of 9/11, it is only a testament to the intelligent treatment the book gives to the complex political issues it tackles.

This was the kind of sophisticated science fiction we had come to expect from you, since the debut of the Culture in the novel Consider Phlebas. (Lent to me in the early 1990s by my older sister with the simple recommendation "You will like this"; still, shamefully, unreturned.) The Culture is a utopian, post-scarcity society, the ultimate representation of the liberal progressive ideal. As the story of the Culture unfolds through novels including The Player of Games and Excession, the utopia is tested against a spectrum of totalitarian regimes, corrupt imperial states and corporate hegemonies. In all cases it proves superior.

At the close of Look to Windward, the Culture is all-powerful, a lone superpower with a galaxy to play in. But it is suggested that the Culture faces an uncertain future, and the threat of betrayal from within. We waited eight years for the next volume in the Culture saga, but while Matter teased us with details of other superpower races in the galaxy, it did not bring the story to its resolution. If the Culture novels have returned to any idea over and again, it is the absolute certainty of change. The Culture can not last forever, so what will the fate of the ideal, utopian society be? Will it ascend to some higher state of being, or will it fall back into the chaos and barbarism it so long resisted?

So. It has been 10 years, and we're still waiting for the third volume of the unofficial trilogy begun with Consider Phlebas and continued in Look to Windward. Thirteen years have passed between the first two volumes. With rumours that work on a new Culture novel began in January 2010, will it be another 13 years before we see the final part?

Yours,



Damien G Walter