Banks, Iain M. Look to windward.

Pocket Books. 483p. c2000. 0-7434-2192-2. $6.99. A

The setting is in the far future on an artificial satellite world called Masaq' Orbital, home to about 50 billion members of the Culture. This story takes place some 800 years after the particularly nasty Idiran war, which took out several planets, killing all inhabitants. Composer Ziller, who lives on Masaq', is informed that an emissary, Major Quilan, from Chel will arrive soon. Everyone thinks Quilan is coming to bring the extremely talented composer home to Chel, while Ziller thinks Quilan is coming to kill him; in fact, Quilan is a plant with deep-seeded instructions to blow up the entire orbital as retribution for the souls lost during the war. It seems the Chel believe that these lost souls will only reach heaven by taking an equal number of Culture casualties.

With sentences like, "The sky above you brightened first, then the rising star seemed to coalesce out of the infrared, a shimmering vermilion specter emerging out of the haze line and then sliding along the horizon, shining dimly through the Plate wails and the distant abundances of air and only gradually gaining height, though, once it had properly begun, the daylight lasted longer than on a globe," on the same page with, "She nodded vigorously, 'Absofu#!ing-lutely!;" this is quite a piece of fiction. I will be the first to admit that the characters are highly unusual and "alien." But I spent most of the book waiting to get the gist. When I got to the last sentence. "Life never ceases to surprise," I knew I wouldn't. Although toted as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, YA readership will be limited to those who like their SF way out there. Sherry S. Hoy, Media Spec., Tuscarora Jr. H.S., Mifflintown, PA