Look to Windward

Look to Windward is a science fiction novel by Iain M. Banks: his sixth published novel to feature The Culture. In some respects it serves as a loose sequel to the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas: both titles come from the same sentence of T.S. Eliot's poem, The Waste Land (which appears in this work as an epigraph).

Related Topics:
Science fiction - Novel - Iain M. Banks - The Culture - Consider Phlebas - T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land - Epigraph

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This book deals with the themes of exile, religious justification of mass violence against humanity/sentience, and (naturally) the mores associated with life within a technologically and energically unlimited anarcho-socialist utopia. For those familiar with the universe of The Culture, this work also notably deals (in a limited fashion) with the Sublimed and with their construction of a heaven. The end of the novel also shows a harder side to the Culture not seen in previous novels.

Related Topics:
Exile - Anarcho - Socialist - Utopia - The Culture - Sublimed - Heaven

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Many contemporary literary journals have reviewed Look to Windward favourably, and critics consider the author as one of the prime motivators for the return to the mainstream of contemporary UK fiction and science fiction.

Related Topics:
UK - Fiction - Science fiction

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