Feersum Endjinn is one of Iain Banks’ few non-Culture sci-fi novels. Like the Culture novels, an existential crisis drives the plot: in this case the action takes place on Earth in the far future and the sun has aged to a point where it will grow and swallow the earth. This is referred to as the Encroachment. The characters are divided between the good guys who seek to find a solution for the greater good and bad guys who use the Encroachment to consolidate their power and influence.

A while back, I decided I was going to write about the Iain M. Banks sci-fi-novels (mainly as a respite from having to read and write about J. G. Ballard novels, but I only got as fas as writing about the excellent “Against A Dark Barkground” and re-reading the first of the Culture novels “Consider Phlebas”. WARNING: Some plot spoilers follow (but not too many). I’m not sure why it has taken almost two years to write about this novel.

As I mentioned before I am re-reading the novels of Iain Banks and this weekend I managed to finish Consider Phlebas. A little post about it will be coming up soon. One of my favourite things about the Culture novels is how the ships are named and having found a list on Wikipedia, I thought I would share ten of my favourites with you! You’ll Clean That Up Before You Leave Ravished By The Sheer Implausibility Of That Last Statement All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff Prosthetic Conscience Of Course I Still Love You Size Isn’t Everything Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again Dramatic Exit, Or, Thank you And Goodnight We Haven’t Met But You’re A Great Fan Of Mine Anticipation Of A New Lover’s Arrival, The Great names all I am sure you would agree.