Editing Excession (section)

==Literary significance and criticism==

===Banks' view of the Culture===
The book, more than any of the other Culture novels, focuses on the Culture's [[Mind (The Culture)|Minds]] as protagonists.

When asked about his focus on the possibilities of [[technology]] in [[fiction]], Banks said about the book:<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mitchell|first=Chris|date=3 September 1996|title=Iain Banks: Whit and Excession: Getting Used To Being God|url=https://spikemagazine.com/0996bank/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210314155056/https://spikemagazine.com/0996bank/|archive-date=14 March 2021|access-date=6 September 2021|website=Spike Magazine|language=en-US}}</ref>

{{blockquote|You can't escape the fact that humanity is a technological species, homo technophile or whatever the Latin is. Technology is neither good or bad, it's up to the user. We can't escape what we are, which is a technological species. There's no way back.|}}

The book shows a number of Minds acting in a decidedly non-benevolent way, somewhat qualifying the godlike incorruptibility and benevolence they are ascribed in other Culture novels. Banks himself has described the actions of some of the Minds in the novel as akin to "barbarian kings presented with the promise of gold in the hills."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=Chris|date=1 December 2001|title='Special Circumstances': Intervention by a Liberal Utopia|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03058298010300031601|journal=Millennium: Journal of International Studies|language=en|volume=30|issue=3|pages=625–633|doi=10.1177/03058298010300031601|s2cid=143328512 |issn=0305-8298}}</ref>

===Reviews===
''[[Kirkus Reviews]]'' described the book as "Brilliantly inventive and amusing – whole sections read like strings of knowing jokes – but a mess: Chattering spaceships with splendid if confusing names [...] don't compensate for the absence of real characters."<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/iain-m-banks/excession/ |journal=[[Kirkus Reviews]] |title=''Excession'' by Iain M. Banks |date=December 1, 1996}}</ref> A few who praised it commented that ''Excession''{{'}}s complexity and frequent use of [[in-joke]]s make it advisable for new readers of Banks' Culture stories to start with other books.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Johnson|first=Greg L|date=1998|title=The SF Site Featured Review: Excession|url=http://www.sfsite.com/03a/exc28.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210809175538/http://www.sfsite.com/03a/exc28.htm|archive-date=9 August 2021|access-date=2021-09-06|website=www.sfsite.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Wohleber|first=Curt|date=1997|title=Excession: Has the Culture finally met its match?|url=http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue38/books.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090201222820/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue38/books.html|archive-date=1 February 2009|website=Science Fiction Weekly}}</ref> In a retrospective of ''Excession'' at [[Tor Books|Tor]], Peter Tieryas writes, "There are literally paragraphs thrown in as background detail that could make for amazing novels of their own. Part of the joy of ''Excession'' is hearing the Minds speak with each other, that matrix-like shower of numbers, text, esoteric syntax, and witty repartee."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Tieryas|first=Peter|date=6 March 2015|title=On Iain M. Banks and the Video Game that Inspired Excession|url=https://www.tor.com/2015/03/06/on-iain-m-banks-and-the-video-game-that-inspired-excession-sid-meier-civilization/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303150750/https://www.tor.com/2015/03/06/on-iain-m-banks-and-the-video-game-that-inspired-excession-sid-meier-civilization/|archive-date=3 March 2021|access-date=7 September 2021|website=Tor.com|language=en-US}}</ref>

Reviewed in ''Arcane Magazine'' with a 10/10 rating, the novel was an "astounding achievement," regarded as "huge in scope, intricate in detail, swaying from pathos to metaphysics and from humour to light-speed action," with Banks considered, "a science-fiction writer truly without equal at the moment."<ref name="Arcane8">{{cite journal|last=Kibblewhite|first=Gideon|date=July 1996|title=Excession by lain M Banks|url=https://annarchive.com/files4/Arcane%2008.pdf|journal=Arcane Magazine|publisher=[[Future plc|Future Publishing]]|issue=8|page=80|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211173419/https://annarchive.com/files4/Arcane%2008.pdf|archive-date=11 December 2020}}</ref>