Terrible machines

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Förchtbar machinery Transport (AKA Feersum Endjinn ) is a science fiction - novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks . The English original was first published in 1994, the German translation in 2000. It is Banks' second SF novel, which is not part of the culture cycle .

action

The action takes place in a distant future on planet earth. The upload of the conscious human mind into a global computer network , which is known as a "data corpus", "cryptosphere" or "crypt", is everyday practice and allows the reincarnation of the deceased. However, it has become common practice to only allow a limited number of reincarnations.

The technical background knowledge of mankind has been lost to a considerable extent, as a large part of the species has left the planet and those who remain (or at least their rulers) are fighting against further technological advances, for example in the field of artificial intelligence .

Meanwhile, the solar system is approaching an interstellar molecular cloud known as the Great Eclipse (in the original encroachment ). There is a threat of a darkening of sunlight that would extinguish all life on earth. The part of humanity known as the Diaspora , who long ago left Earth and the Solar System behind, has left behind a device (the title's Förchtbar Maschien ) intended to provide a solution to this problem. The four main characters in the book, who do not meet each other until shortly before the end of the story, are involved in different ways in the attempts to activate the fearful machines . Finally the activation succeeds and with it the beginning of a slow shift of the solar system out of the area of ​​the molecular cloud.

A quarter of the book is told in phonetic notation by the youthful first-person narrator Bascule, the "mediator" ( Bascule the Teller ). This is explained by a reading and spelling disorder of Bascule, which is written in the German translation Baskül . Bascule appears for the first time in the fourth chapter of part 1 of the novel, which in the original begins as follows:

"Woak up. Got dresd. Had brekfast. Spoke wif Ergates thi ant who sed itz juss been wurk wurk wurk 4 u lately master Bascule, Y dont u ½ a holiday? & I agreed & that woz how we decided we otter go 2 c Mr Zoliparia in thi I-ball ov thi gargoyle Rosbrith. "

- Iain M. Banks : Feersum Endjinn

Horst Pukallus and Michael K. Iwoleit translate this in the German edition:

"W8e up. Dress me up. Carrion early morning. Talk to ant Agathe sie s8e: In ledzder zeid hazd you only xocht xocht xocht meizder Baskül why lekzd you not xn free tach 1? I gave her räschd + so came the idea mr. To visit Soloparia in Augappel dez Rosbrith-Mammuments. "

- Iain M. Banks : Terrible machines

reception

Christopher Palmer writes in an essay in Science Fiction Studies that the novel is not apocalyptic, even if it threatens earthly life to be extinguished; the parts told by Bascule give Feersum Endjin a "wonderful lightness and airiness" according to Palmer. As in Dan Simmons' Hyperion volumes , “the feeling of space is turned off its conventional axis”.

The review magazine Kirkus Reviews calls the novel an “extraordinary, often brilliantly inventive odyssey”, but ultimately comes to the conclusion that it makes no sense.

Feersum Endjinn received the British Science Fiction Association Award for best novel of 1994. Horst Pukallus and Michael K. Iwoleit received the 2001 Kurd-Laßwitz Prize for their German translation .

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Iain M. Banks: Feersum Endjinn . Orbit, London 2006, ISBN 978-1-85723-273-8 , pp. 16 .
  2. ↑ Iain M. Banks: Förchtbar machinery Transport . Heyne, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-453-15660-9 , pp. 26 .
  3. ^ A b Christopher Palmer: Galactic Empires and the Contemporary Extravaganza: Dan Simmons and Iain M. Banks . In: Science Fiction Studies . vol. 26, no. 1 , 1999, p. 79 , JSTOR : 4240753 .
  4. ↑ Feersum Endjinn . In: Kirkus Reviews . May 1, 1995 ( online ).