For those of you not familiar with Iain M Banks’ Culture novels, I suggest that you do not read this book.
Not right away.
No, I would suggest that you acquaint yourself with the Culture by reading, at the very least, Use of Weapons or Consider Phlebas.
And then you read this book.
Because, although at first glance it is very easy to disregard Inversions as having anything to do with the Culture, and it could possibly be enjoyed without that prior knowledge, it gains so many more levels after familiarising yourself with Banks’ imagined universe.
Yes, it reads almost exactly like an historical drama, a faux-medieval setting populated with kings and dukes and ladies in waiting and guards and waifs and wastrels. Given that this sort of setting is so beloved by fantasy stories, it is not hard to read it as a tale of magic, even if the “magic” is so subtle that it’s plausible you could explain it away prosaically; maybe it’s just an inaccurate telling of events by a sloppy story-teller. (That last clause when applied to Banks could not be further from the truth, of course.)
Yes, it is possible to enjoy this book without knowing an ounce about the Culture. It is possible to enjoy whilst ignoring the intimations that the story is science fiction: two suns and many moons; a character’s seeming preternatural ability to listen in on conversations she shouldn’t be able to. (These could easily be worked into a story of full-blown fantasy, after all.) It is possible to enjoy the rounded characters and thought-provoking situations at face value.
But to get the full dimensionality of the story, to read it as I think Banks intended, you do need to know about the Culture.
