Abandoned Review of Transition, by Iain M. Banks

Back in October 2009, I started writing a review of Iain M. Banks' Transition, a novel about parallel universes and, tangentially, eclipses. For reasons unknown to me now, I abandoned the review; only four short paragraphs remain. I post them here because the review opens with a recounting of a conversation I had with my friend Allan back when we were roommates in the Bleak House of Blahs. That conversation has always lingered with me, now more than ever, for reasons that will soon become clear. What the conversation had to do with Transition, I don't recall.

Here's the text:

Sometime during the summer of 1992 or 1993 - one of the summers, at least, during the time of the Bleak House of Blahs - Allan and I talked about the times. He was sitting in front of his Commodore Amiga.

"For all we know," Allan said, "Even with all the terrible things that are happening in the world, a hundred years from now people might look back at the 90s and think of them as a golden age."

"Or they could think that way even ten or fifteen years from now," I said.

This conversation with Allan has stuck in my mind for some years now, and it was brought back to vivid life as I read the opening chapters of Iain M. Banks' newest novel, Transition.