Influences - Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks

Iain Banks was, without doubt, a key influence on my own writing.  In the late 1990s I fell out of love with the fantasy genre for several years, instead picking up books by various other writers.  I discovered tense thrillers by John Grisham, Ian Rankin’s detective novels and his amazing creation of Inspector Rebus, and the wry humour of Bill Bryson and Helen Fielding, to name but a few.  And then there was Iain Banks.

Since his debut novel, The Wasp Factory, was released in 1984 Banks’s output was, frankly phenomenal.  He released books in either the mainstream (if Banks’s work could ever be described as that) or sci-fi markets (as Iain M Banks) more or less every year from 1984 right up until his untimely passing in 2013.  I think that’s one of the greatest tragedies in the literary world, that we lost Banks at his creative prime.  I often find myself wondering what further books he would otherwise have released in the decade since his death – an imponderable that’s impossible to answer, because no one else ever wrote like Banks.

One of Banks’s enduring creations is the sci-fi universe of the Culture, which first appeared in his 1987 novel Consider Phlebas.  This was my first introduction to galaxy-spanning space opera.  The Culture exists in a post-scarcity interstellar state of utopia, having ceded control of their worlds and space habitats to sentient artificial intelligences.  Referred to as Minds, these AI exist physically in their vast spaceships, orbitals and ring worlds.  In many ways the Culture is a benevolent dictatorship, using their sophisticated technology and centuries of experience in subtle (and not so subtle) ways to help shape less advanced societies to achieve their full potential.  This is carried out overtly via Contact, the equivalent of the Culture's government and diplomatic service.  Sometimes they need to use more underhand tactics to achieve their objectives, where they deploy their secret service, known as Special Circumstances.

This post focuses on one specific novel, Use of Weapons, which is set in the Culture universe and features the exploits of Cheradenine Zakalwe.  Zakalwe was born outside the Culture but has been recruited into Special Circumstances by their agent Diziet Sma, using his military skills to help intervene in less advanced civilizations, with varying degrees of success.  Use of Weapons is one of those books that left a lasting impression and it had a significant influence on my own writing, specifically my new novel A Quiet Vengeance, which I’ll be releasing later this year.

So, what does a sci-fi novel featuring the sprawling, hedonistic universe of the Culture have to do with a standalone fantasy story, set in a world analogous with the Middle-East during the Middle Ages?  You’ll have to read on to find out.

Use of Weapons first came out in 1990, although my somewhat dog-eared paperback edition was printed in 2003, the purple spine now faded with age.  It’s a long time since I read this book but it stayed with me for the last twenty years for three reasons.  There’s Banks’s inventive and dazzling writing, a gift which sparkles when he gives it free rein, the unexpected twist at the end of the novel and its bold narrative structure.

It wasn’t the twist, it was the structure that I found most intriguing.  I’m not going to give away any spoilers but the striking thing is how Banks employed a dual timeline in this novel to great effect.  The main storyline proceeds in a normal, linear fashion, those chapters alternating with others from an earlier time, telling Zakalwe’s backstory.  That’s something I see in lots of books but what made Use of Weapons unique in my reading experience was how Zakalwe’s history was told in reverse, starting with his most recent past events and then moving back progressively in time with each subsequent chapter.  ‘Subsequent’ isn’t even entirely the correct word, as after ‘Chapter One’ we move on to ‘XIII’, those Roman numerals counting back each time, as we move towards a key event in Zakalwe’s past.

This was a lightbulb moment for me, when I first understood structure could be used to tell a story.  In fact, if the whole tale was told without the device, the impact of the novel would be greatly diminished.  That idea took hold, and stayed there, quietly biding its time, waiting for the right moment as I started writing creative fiction in 2005.

Out of sequence storytelling isn’t unique – the movies Pulp Fiction and Memento both immediately spring to mind as examples.  However, it has to be used in the right context for it to be effective and add something to the story.  My first novels were built around a linear timeline, as I grappled with the basics of character, plot and storytelling voice.  I stuck to the fundamentals and, over time, became more proficient in my craft.

Yet Use of Weapons remained lodged in my mind and I think it spurred me on to try something different with my latest book.  It’s not ground-breaking by any means, but in A Quiet Vengeance I structured my novel in a different way, using two separate timelines to tell the story of my two protagonists and the shared secret in their past, one which binds them together.

I’m not for one moment announcing that I’m the next Iain M Banks, heir apparent to his undisputed genius.  However, all writers are influenced by and borrow from each other all the time.  Authors are almost always readers and what you read inevitably leaves an impression, conscious or otherwise.  As Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists copy; great artists steal.”

There’s another idea nagging at me now, to take a novel and go full Use of Weapons with the structure.  Part of me is simply curious as to whether I can even pull it off, but until I have the right story, where a reverse time narrative adds something necessary, that’s all it will be.  An idea.  Although there is something there – an inkling of how it might work, with a certain character and a particular storyline.  Time will tell.

For now, I’m content with having written A Quiet Vengeance and stretched my creative writing muscles that little bit more.  I’ll take satisfaction knowing it’s a better book for having read the work of the late, great Iain M Banks.

A Quiet Vengeance will be released on 15th April 2023.