Transition by Iain Banks

I've been going through a bit of an Iain Banks phase at the moment, reading all his science fiction books written with the 'M' middle initial, that I had previously ignored. I've always kept fairly up-to-date with his more mainstream 'literary' novels.

Transition (published without the middle initial) falls somewhere between his mainstream and science-fiction works. Transition is structurally ambitious with a self-confesed unreliable narrator and numerous different story strands that appear in different chronological orders. The story is told from several points of view and I found myself having to flip back a few pages to check what was going on once or twice.

The main characters in the book can move between different realities or universes. To do this they take a drug that lets them control the mind of a person in an alternate reality. There are communist realities and nazi realities. It's all a bit complicated and could be easier to understand with a diagram. A good plan is to stop trying to understand it and just enjoy the book.

The story deals with an organisation called the Concern that tries to improve realities by selected interventions. Something seems to have gone wrong in the Concern and one man tries to find out what the problem is.

This may not be Banks most accessible book but it is still good fun. Start with The Crow Road or Complicity if you've not read any of his work before. The Wasp Factory is also a classic (I did my higher dissertation on it about 16 years ago). Transition is also notable for the new interpretation of the term 'multiple orgasm' amongst the members of the Concern.

http://www.iain-banks.net/