Use of weapons

400 pages

English language

Published Nov. 10, 1990 by OrbitBooks.

ISBN:
978-0-7088-8350-1
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4 stars (13 reviews)

The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past. Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, USE OF WEAPONS is a masterpiece of science fiction.

12 editions

reviewed Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #3)

Use of Weapons (Goodreads)

4 stars

Content warning General spoilers

not sure it fully lands for me

4 stars

Content warning incl discussion of ending

Carbon Fascists

4 stars

Content warning Spoilers for the plot of Use of Weapons, including the ending

Review of 'Use of Weapons' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Use of Weapons marks a departure for Banks from the more linear storylines of Consider Phlebas and Player of Games to what is effectively a character study of Cheradenine Zakalwe: a non-Culture human who has been recruited by Special Circumstances to... do what SC do.

There were a lot of elements I liked about the book, providing as it does a better look at the imperatives and motives of Special Circumstances and - by extension - the broader Culture, and there were some funny and often gut-wrenching set pieces along the way, but the overall effect (including the disorienting time jumps to different epochs in Zakalwe's long and dangerous life and the barely explained 'shock' ending) was not as satisfying as a more conventional approach to storytelling could have been. As a result, the book felt more like it was trying to make a point at the expense of entertaining …

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