Excession
Exzession ( original English title: Excession, published in 1996) is the fourth published novel from the culture cycle of Iain M. Banks. In German, the novel was first published The trail of the dead sun in hardcover under the title in 1997, only the paperback edition of 2002 was called Excession.
Content
In the book, the reaction of the culture on the occurrence of a außerkontextuellen problem ( the Exzession ) is described. The Exzession is a perfect black body suddenly appears in their region of space and seems to be older than the universe itself, he is the whole book over there and initially appears mysterious and inscrutable. Finally, the Exzession disappears after a short interaction with a group of starships of culture.
The primary storyline follows several people who will be played by the artificial intelligences of the vessels involved against each other to manipulate other ships in his actions. In this storyline, the relationship of the affront ( a civilization that has given its name to right ) is considered to culture. The book, however, mainly the relationship between the machines as well as to its residents and partners, the people.
Context within the culture cycle
In Exzession the culture is shown mainly from the perspective of their artificial intelligences (especially space ships and drones, which in culture possess the same citizenship status as human beings and other intelligent biological life forms). Thus, the book provides for the first time within the cycle a deeper insight into those beings who control the infrastructure of these highly developed civilization. Here, the reader also encounter " eccentric " ships that move beyond the consideration of their own species as binding moral boundaries.