The novel “Use of Weapons” by Iain M. Banks was published for the first time in 1990. It’s part of the Culture series.
Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of the best agents of Special Circumstances, the Culture agency that intervenes in other less advanced civilizations. Agent Diziet Sma, assisted by the drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw, looks for him to entrust him with a new mission in a star cluster in which the situation is unstable.
In the course of his life, Zakalwe has seen too much but his inner torments also prevent him from living in tranquility in the Culture. He accepts the mission that was proposed to him and as payment asks to find a woman.
The first version of the novel that eventually became “Use of Weapons” was much longer and was Iain M. Banks’ first attempt at writing a novel. The narrative structure was even more complex and the author realized that this was a fatal flaw. For years, he worked on other novels and that’s why the Culture was introduced in very different ways but in the end, he heavily revised his first novel until he got the version that was published.
The structure of “Use of Weapons” remains complex because there’s a narrative stream where the main story is told in chronological order and another where parts of the protagonist’s backstory are told going back in time. The chapters that tell the main story have the numbers written in words while those that tell parts of the story of the protagonist have the numbers written in Roman numerals. You need to pay attention, as it’s easy to get confused.
Initially, it can be difficult to get into the story because of its structure but also because the action is accompanied by a tendency towards exposition. In many cases, it seems to show the dark side of the Culture more than the protagonist’s story. This civilization is supposed to be a post-scarcity utopia but in this novel, we see how it regularly interferes with other less advanced civilizations for its own ends. This is used by Iain M. Banks to develop ethical and moral issues related to the activities of the Culture.
As the novel goes on, there’s a progressive digging into the protagonist’s past and personality. His missions all in all show limited violence and there’s also a certain humor, for example in certain exchanges of opinion he has with Skaffen-Amtiskaw. Instead, the devastating ending, with its twists and turns, has really dark tones!
The ending represents the culmination of the discovery phase of the history of the Zakalwe family and the relationship between Cheradenine Zakalwe and a man named Elethiomel. It’s a key to understanding the meaning of many events recounted in the novel and the protagonist’s attitudes.
The set of two narrative streams spans many years with events happening across a large area involving many planets. However, the real exploration concerns the protagonist’s inner space. Fragments of his missions may seem trivial, especially at the beginning, and they make sense only after learning about his past and understanding his motivations.
In “Use of Weapons”, Iain M. Banks uses the protagonist’s story to develop ethical and moral themes related to more or less vast and more or less violent conflicts. It’s a complex novel that fully reveals its details by re-reading it knowing the twists and turns of its final part. If you’re ready for a bitter, dark, and sometimes really brutal story, I recommend reading it.
