Sep 17

Travel | Amsterdam to Prague

Asides
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Where to start?

At the beginning, I suppose. The flight from Vancouver was good, got into the air without a hitch and the flight was comfortable (except for the over-ripe Dutch woman beside my girlfriend who couldn’t help but take up all the space she paid for… plus half of my girlfriend’s.) Getting off the plane was interesting, though. When we arrived in Schipol airport, we couldn’t help but notice all the dozens of guards armed with machine gun. I suppose that’s what happens, though, when you arrive in a westernized country on September 11th. Despite the guards, we arrived safe and sound… to find the city of Amsterdam taking a beating from a torrential downpour!
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Sep 17

Review | Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks

Reviews
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Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

Use of Weapons

Author – Iain M. Banks

Paperback
Pages: 512 pages
Publisher: Orbit Books
Release Date: Feb. 1st, 1990
ISBN-10: 0316030570
ISBN-13: 978-0316030571

It had always seemed to him that the ideal man was either a soldier or a poet, and so, having spent most of his years being one of those – to him – polar opposites, he determined to attempt to turn his life around and become the other.

So opens Chapter VI of Use of Weapons a militaristic Science Fiction novel that many consider to be one of Iain M. Banks’ best works. Coincidentally, this passage also very accurately describes Banks as both a writer and a storyteller.

Use of Weapons balances the fine line between being a poetically over-complicated piece of literature and a frenetic tale of revenge and warfare. The tale often hops back and forth between the two styles and with each change I found myself jarred out of the experience. Part of this is the result of the actual structure of the story, which is, in many ways, a short story collection wrapped around a longer piece of fiction, each short story adding to the longer overall narrative.
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