Look windward

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Look to windward (English title: Look to Windward published, 2000) is the sixth published science fiction - novel from the culture cycle of Iain M. Banks .

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800 largely peaceful years have passed since the war between the culture and the Idirans . The Chelgrians , a level 4 civilization on the planet Chel, have cultivated a distinct, extremely rigid caste system for over 6000 years and are therefore classified by the older civilizations as not particularly interesting, slightly barbaric species with hardly average skills and moderate future prospects. Shortly after the Chelgrians had developed the skill of transferring their own personality to external media, 6% of their population more or less spontaneously went into sublimity . These sublime ones , who call themselves Chelgri-Puen , are still in close contact with the rest of the species. The Chelgri-Puen build a sky for the rest of the Chelgrians, which has an entry restriction . After unsuccessful political intervention by culture on the matter, Chel wages civil war in the course of which five billion Chelgrians die. With the discreet participation of culture , the adversaries of the civil war make a fragile peace with one another, but are unable to retaliate, which according to Chelgrian thought would be indispensable. The Chelgri-Puen reveal to the Chel that on the threshold to heaven five billion Chelgrian souls, victims of the civil war, were waiting to enter, but that they were not allowed to enter because they had not died honorably. Only when the culture had paid the same blood toll as the Chel would salvation of souls be possible.

The Chelgrians are too weak militarily to be able to attack the culture effectively. According to the principles of asymmetrical warfare , an influential splinter group in the leadership of the Chel decides to achieve the target - five billion cultural dead - by means of terror. With anonymous support from an older galactic civilization, these planners are certain of their success.

They have chosen Major Quilan , a civil war veteran, as a tool for their work . He couldn't cope with the death of his companion and is therefore looking, highly suicidal , for a way to end his life as honorably as possible. After thorough tests and extensive training, he is given a partner: Quilan's soulkeeper , in which his personal consciousness is stored, is modified and a second personality is added. That person is Brigadier General Sholan Hadesh Hoyler , who died 86 years ago and is an alleged cultural expert. The extremely chauvinist military should ensure that Quilan actually carries out his assignment.

Mahrai Ziller , a famous Chelgrian composer , has lived in exile on the Masaq orbital of culture since the end of the civil war . He detests his own species and the caste system deeply rooted in it . Major Quilan's official assignment is to visit the orbital and get Ziller to return; Since parts of his memory were selectively erased until the goal was achieved, Quilan believes this to be the truth. In fact, he is said to carry out an attack on the hub and thus the brain of the orbital using technology also hidden in his soul lair, which is expected to kill four to five billion orbital inhabitants and thus enable the Chelgrian souls to enter their heaven.

The celebrated composer Ziller is commissioned by the central brain of the orbital ( Nabe ) to compose a piece of music to commemorate a particularly cruel chapter in the war between culture and the Idirans . The brain used to be part of the culture ship Permanent Damage ( GSV Lasting Damage ) and was involved in this event itself. When Ziller found out about Quilan's visit, he successfully tried very hard not to meet him.

Large parts of the novel are portrayed from the point of view of Ziller / Huyler and Quilan / Nabe . In addition, however, there is a broad narrative that takes place in a galactic atmosphere , where the cultural scholar Uagen Zlepe studies giant flying beings , the behemotaurs . The scholar accidentally discovers a severely injured Behemotaur in whom he finds remnants of Chelgrian engineering, corpses, and a dying Special Circumstances Agent . The agent begs him to warn the Masaq orbital of an imminent attack. Uagen Zlepe sets off, but gets lost and dies violently.

Although Uagen Zlepe's mission fails, the attack on the orbital is foiled. It turns out that Nabe , the brain of Masaq , is just as longing for death as Major Quilan. At the height of the performance of Ziller's Requiem, the two commit suicide together.

A fourth protagonist appears at three points in the story: A multiple nanodrone of culture , made from so-called A-dust, materializes in the shape of a Chelgrian woman on the home planet of the Chel . At first it only has an observational function; however, after the conspiracy against the Masaq orbital was uncovered, the culture uses this drone to carry out several gruesome death sentences against those responsible in the Chelgrian leadership.

Context within the culture cycle

The book can be seen as a loose continuation of the first published novel Bedenke Phlebas . During the Idiran War, the ship Permanent Damage - now the Masaq Brain - was involved in the fighting that sparked Phleba's concerns . In commemoration of this war, the work composed by Ziller will be performed at the exact point in time when the real light of the double supernova triggered in this battle hits Masaq .

Both the title Consider Phlebas (engl. Consider Phlebas ) and looks to windward (Engl. Look to Windward ) are the poem The Waste Land by TS Eliot borrowed and stand this book as epigraph above:

"Gentile or Jew,
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."

In Looking Windward, Ian Banks grants the deepest insight yet into everyday life in culture. Mostly from the perspective of the composer Ziller, Banks describes the orbital inhabitants with their diverse, sometimes quite crude, sporting and cultural obligations. In addition, the book deals with profound topics such as exile, dealing with losses or the religious-ethical justification of mass murder.

The end of the novel finally shows the hard and vengeful side of the - otherwise rather soft and hedonistic - culture . A metaphysical epilogue , located a few hundred million years after the events described, indicates the long-term fate of culture as a technologically unlimited anarchist utopia .

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