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Iain Banks, Dead Air

Endlich wieder ein Banks - schon bei den ersten Kapiteln merkte ich wie sehr ich den Autor vermisst habe. Und dieses Buch erwies sich als noch viel besser - und vor allem spannender - als ich gedacht hatte. Vor allem im letzten Viertel, als der Radiomoderator Kenneth in so unglaublich vertrackte und haarsträubende Schwierigkeiten gerät, dass ein Happy End unmöglich erscheint, konnte ich mich kaum davon losreißen. Der nächste Banks steht schon auf dem Paperwhite bereit.

Faith is fine for poetry, for images and metaphors and art and for telling us who we are, who we've been. But when faith tries to describe the world, describe the universe, it just plain gets it wrong. Which wouldn't matter if it admitted it was wrong, but it can't, because all it's got is its unwavering certainty in its own infallibilty; the rest is smoke and mirrors, and admitting imperfection brings the whole lot tumbling down. There are no crystal spheres, and the planets are not the result of some sky god's wet dream. If that is supposed to be taken literally, the it's a lie, plain and simple. If it's a metaphor, then it has bugger all to do with the way things really work.
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'I was thinking,' she said, 'of bishops on opposing sides, and of different colours as well. Just the two of them there on the chess board, with no other pieces present.'
I nodded. I saw, now, what she meant.
'They could never connect,' I said. 'They could slide past each other for ever, but never affect. They appear to inhabit the same board, but really they don't. Not at all.'
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(Iain Banks, Dead Air, 2002)