Iain M Banks is Hard To Kill

So I may be about to ruin Use of Weapons for you forever. Look away now!

So I may be about to ruin Use of Weapons for you forever. Look away now!

Nope. Too late.

I haven’t been able to enjoy Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks in quite the same way since a fellow Banks reader suggested to me that the ideal casting for Cheradenine Zakalwe would be 90s era Steven Seagal.

I think the fact that this is true is why UoW is not universally hailed as the greatest Culture novel. Because in many was it is the greatest. The structure. The twist. The battleship. The chair.

No spoilers please.

But the protagonist Cheradenine Zakalwe is also a quite unbearable c*ck.

Which is quite deliberate. Iain writes this character a number of times. Horza in Consider Phlebas is also cocklike but is so clearly doomed that it matters less. Genar-Hofoen is almost a parody of cockness. But Zakalwe is just an unremitting c*ck fot almost the entire novel.

I think this is why I and so many others enjoyed the book so much. Zakalwe is a Bond style superagent after all. But on a later re-read, perhaps with the image of Seagal in mind, Zakalwe started to grate on the nerves.

It’s also the book where Banks does the most with action set pieces. So UoW is the Culture book I recommend to folks who like their space opera widescreen and high octane.

Now I want to read it again!

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