No matter how clever, how ingenious a sci-fi writer may be, and Iain Banks was unarguably amongst the more adroit, they cannot, no matter how hard they might try, escape from human considerations and preoccupations. It cannot be otherwise, nor should it be. For the point of art, all art, including even that of science fiction writing, is to throw light on the human condition in as imaginative and provocative way as possible. It is something of a credit to our species that we continue to dream up ever more inventive ways of doing so. But when all the artistic tricks and gimmicks are stripped away we are invariably left with the usual human stuff; power struggles, empire building, insecurities, and a fear and intolerance of the other.

So it transpired with Banks Transition, a most enjoyable romp through the multiverse, where the omnipresent Concern seeks to create order throughout not just one Earth but an infinite number of Earth’s by tinkering with events and removing the bad guys. No small undertaking. And true to all things human, there turns out to be a power struggle right at the very heart of the organisation. Asimov trod this territory decades earlier with his engrossing, End of Eternity but Banks gives it fresh momentum and insight.

The particular angle that Banks exploits is creating not distant alien worlds, as he has done in the past, but rather one human world with infinite alternative realities. Sounds totally far-fetched, but even our top scientific geeks are positing the possibility of a multiverse as opposed to a boring old universe. Try clicking on the Wikipedia entry for multiverse and you will end up with either the most exhilarating hour of your life or alternatively the most baffling one. For me it was mainly the latter. Most of us struggle to cope with three, possibly four dimensions on a good day. The idea of infinite dimensions and infinite realities just gives you a whopping headache. But not so for our intrepid Mr Banks. He seems to simply revel in the concept. Quantum universes I believe is the correct terminology. Even Steven Hawking lends credibility to the concept, though he does have a history of being somewhat mischievous when he wants to be. It’s easy to play around with the idea at a dinner party level. Just imagine you are running for a train which will take you to an important job interview. You miss the train by a few seconds and you don’t get the job, you don’t meet and marry someone in the office, you don’t have a kid that would have grown up to be a prime minister or perhaps a serial killer. In fact, a whole different life unfolds for you and everyone that you know or will ever know. Get the idea. One missed train, two entirely different universes. I sincerely doubt this is what Hawking or other quantum physicists are on about, but it’s a good mind game to play if you’ve got nothing better to do.

Having created for his readers an Earth with an infinite set of possibilities, Banks is then in a position to make some astute observations about human organisation and morality. Here’s one that has a certain resonance about it:

Almost without exception we human beings were weak and dishonest and cruel and selfish and dishonourable and desperate to avoid pain and torment and incarceration and death even to the point of implicating those we knew full well to be completely innocent. And that was the point. We were all the same. P346

Banks does concede that some versions of Earth are more social, less competitive, less tribal than others. That’s a revolutionary thought in itself. But Banks is at pains to get across just how barbaric most versions of Earth turned out to be. One of Banks central characters happens to be a professional torturer for the well- meaning Concern organisation. But he’s a torturer with a troubled conscience. That’s convenient for Banks purpose because he can now set up a dialogue about how nasty state sanctioned torture really is:

Don’t you see? You can’t have a state where torture is legal, not for anything. You start saying it’s only for the most serious cases, but that never lasts. It should always be illegal, for everybody, for everything. You might not stop it. Laws against murder don’t stop all murders, do they? But you make sure people don’t even think about it unless it’s a desperate situation, something immediate. And you have to make the torturer pay. In full. There has to be that disincentive, or they’ll or be at it. P311

You can soon see that even with the most elaborate science fiction scenarios, we are soon back to the brutal world of humans. Another of Banks central characters is a city dealer from our reality. That helps the reader keep their feet on the ground so to speak and once again allows Banks to make his ethical stand. Not all human realities turn out to be obsessed with money and greed but our one certainly is and Banks makes damn sure we are reminded of it:

And we had our own financial advisers, believe it or not. We could make it and we could spend it, but putting it to best use, saving for a rainy day, that was another area of expertise. I mean, obviously we had a pretty good idea what to do with the loot, hundred times better than your average Joe Mug in the street, but there were people who specialised in that sort of stuff, so you listened to them. Tax shelters, write-offs, offshoring all you could, putting stuff in trusts which in theory were controlled elsewhere and just doled out what you needed. In the end we were paying less tax than our Paki cleaners. P277

So there you have it. In an imaginary world of infinite realities we are right back to square one; power struggles, torture and greed. Would it be possible to create sci-fi worlds that were totally removed from human preoccupations? Difficult. If the writer wants to make a gripping story you can bet that pretty soon all the old muck will soon start to emerge. The dialectic is relentless. Stick two like-minded people in a room and sooner or later they will be at each other’s throats, literally as well as metaphorically. One inevitably divides into two, as Chairman Mao would say. Is this a uniquely human phenomenon or is it something more universal. Does the dialectic operate in every reality and in every universe or just our grubby little one? I strongly suspect the former to be true, though as a fully paid up member of the human race in this material universe I would think that.