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Kerbtree posted:Heads up, UK goons - radio 4's airing State of the Art this week. Get yer arse over to iplayer.
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# ? Mar 6, 2009 23:34 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 06:30 |
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Side recommendation for Iain M. Banks readers: Greg Egan
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# ? Mar 8, 2009 06:22 |
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Oh hell yes. Diaspora has what could be badly termed the intellectual's Snow Crash opening.
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# ? Mar 8, 2009 06:57 |
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Payndz posted:It all comes together at the end, and for me it was... let's just say . So yes, it's worth sticking with. I figured it out pretty early in the book but it was still pretty good
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# ? Mar 8, 2009 08:13 |
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Crime on a Dime posted:Side recommendation for Iain M. Banks readers: Greg Egan Egan can be fantastically good, especially his short stories, but with half his novels I end up feeling like I don't know nearly enough theoretical physics to really appreciate what he's doing. Still, Diaspora and Permutation City were goddamn fantastic, and Quarantine blew my loving mind when I was 17. Didn't enjoy Schild's Ladder, Distress or Teranesia quite as much, but they were still really interesting. I got Incandescence for xmas and it's still on my to-read list. His short stories are almost uniformly brilliant though. He's got that great old '60s/'70s "What if..." writing philosophy updated with a good knowledge of modern day theoretical physics and biotech. Some of his stories make me think "this is what Larry Niven would have written if someone had sent a crate of New Scientists back in time to him in the '60s".
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# ? Mar 8, 2009 15:03 |
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Danhenge posted:I figured it out pretty early in the book but it was still pretty good Out of interest did you know there was some kind of twist at the end? I think it's one of those books that get spoiled a lot because it gets recommended with "there's a really big twist that'll freak you our" or whatever... and once you know that there's not much it could be.
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# ? Mar 8, 2009 20:02 |
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Turpitude posted:And on another note, what are everyone's favourite Banks action scenes? The escape from the ring world was pretty cool too. Turpitude posted:The Algebraist: The sailing races on the gas giant with the Dwellers. The betrayal with nano machines, followed by The Major falling into the gas giant and firing upwards before being blasted out of her suit and sliced in half. Then the emergence of the massive Dweller fleet out of the stormwalls to destroy the stupid humans, the rising of the Deniable and the annihilation of an entire enemy fleet, the Dwellers joyfully betting on the spectacle. Hilarious and gripping stuff.
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# ? Mar 8, 2009 23:38 |
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I just finished Look to Windward and while it was the usual stellar Banks fare, once again there was no real satisfaction for me in the ending. The entire book was building towards a climax that was simply nullified by the Culture who had had a secret agent working for them the whole time. This book also lacked the action scenes that I fell in love with in Phlebas and Algebraist. Still a great read, but Banks has yet to deliver me an ending I've been satisfied with. My favourite parts of Look to Windward have to be the stuff in the airspheres with the dirigible behemothaurs. I love that kind of study of utterly bizarre alien lifeforms and it really left me wanting more.
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# ? Mar 10, 2009 21:03 |
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Turpitude posted:I just finished Look to Windward and while it was the usual stellar Banks fare, once again there was no real satisfaction for me in the ending. The entire book was building towards a climax that was simply nullified by the Culture who had had a secret agent working for them the whole time. This book also lacked the action scenes that I fell in love with in Phlebas and Algebraist. Still a great read, but Banks has yet to deliver me an ending I've been satisfied with. "Dirigible Behemothaur" is also really fun to say out loud.
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# ? Mar 10, 2009 21:11 |
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Hello Pity posted:Out of interest did you know there was some kind of twist at the end? I think it's one of those books that get spoiled a lot because it gets recommended with "there's a really big twist that'll freak you our" or whatever... and once you know that there's not much it could be. no I just figured it out, I do that a lot
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# ? Mar 11, 2009 07:55 |
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Biplane posted:I've read one Banks book, and it was kind of all over the place. Early on you had some colonists I think, exploring a crashed starship and finding something, and then there's an alien warlord with a head for a punching bag and then you're with one of the colonists as he's fleeing someone and ends up with a bunch of balloon people. I didn't really like it. :X Sounds like the algebraist to me (I loved it). If you want an M Banks book that's easier to follow but still good The Player Of Games is p cool
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# ? Mar 12, 2009 17:01 |
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Foxy Stoat posted:The Lazy Gun in Against A Dark Background is cool, its effects when fired at a target are unpredictable, it might crush someone with an anchor, summon a tidal wave, or destroy a city with a comet. Definite Douglas Adams influence there, I reckon. Ah this is where I'm running into problems with Use Of Weapons. The characters and situations are on occasion so drat wacky and zany when I was expecting it all to be a little more gritty. I almost stopped reading after the orgy, and again with the mutilation party. I'm just over half way through and very tempted to stop. Is poo poo about to get real™ at any point?
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# ? Mar 20, 2009 06:03 |
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JgPz posted:Ah this is where I'm running into problems with Use Of Weapons. The characters and situations are on occasion so drat wacky and zany when I was expecting it all to be a little more gritty. I almost stopped reading after the orgy, and again with the mutilation party. The ending sucks balls but I'm not gonna spoil it for you.
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# ? Mar 20, 2009 09:31 |
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JgPz posted:Ah this is where I'm running into problems with Use Of Weapons. The characters and situations are on occasion so drat wacky and zany when I was expecting it all to be a little more gritty. I almost stopped reading after the orgy, and again with the mutilation party. Pretty much all of Banks' books do this to some extent. Even the more serious ones tend to have their absurdist moments. This goes for his non-science fiction as well. He's not and never has been a particularly gritty author. I think if anything the recurring theme in all his work is excess. So when he writes about crime, violence and murder (in the case of something like Complicity) or disfunctional sociopaths (like The Wasp Factory), that too tends to be excessive. He can get some mixed reviews because of this, what some percieve as over-the-top nastiness/grittiness, I've always felt was actually intended as tongue-in-cheek, hyperbolic nastiness. To me it's all whacky and zany. If you're expecting anything else I suspect you may be disapointed. It might be in a minority with this but as far as I'm concerned all of Banks' books are comedies. Not as overtly so as something like the Diskworld novels or the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, but still at heart comedic in nature. I don't think they tend to get marketed as such though, especially the science fiction books. If you end up deciding this isn't the sort of stuff you're into and want some genuinely gritty sci-fi you could do worse than checking out Richard Morgan's stuff, especially the Takeshi Kovacs books. Gravy Jones fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Mar 20, 2009 |
# ? Mar 20, 2009 10:18 |
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Hello Pity posted:It might be in a minority with this but as far as I'm concerned all of Banks' books are comedies. Not as overtly so as something like the Diskworld novels or the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, but still at heart comedic in nature. I don't think they tend to get marketed as such though, especially the science fiction books. I always thought Look to Windward was a wee bit Wodehouseian, what with all the social comedy of the two main characters avoiding each other for the whole book.
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# ? Mar 20, 2009 16:36 |
Entropic posted:
I read a fair number of Culture novels a while back, and while I respect Banks as an author, I remember having a significant distaste for both of those books in particular -- Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games. The Player of Games seemed like he was pulling a reverse Heinlein and using sci-fi to take cheap shots at opposing ideologies -- i.e., he's positing a post-scarcity environment, then writing a sci-fi novel attacking a capitalist (and conveniently also inherently sexist, etc.) society because, hey, look, they aren't an enlightened post-scarcity socialist economy! How evil of them! Of course, plenty of great SF has been just a political vehicle -- from H.G. Wells on down -- so that's not really a criticism as such, just something I personally found irritating. It seemed like he was taking cheap shots. Consider Phlebas I just found depressing. I read it as a deconstruction of the heroic sci-fi epic -- taking the standard SF trope of individual, capable, hero protagonists and deconstructing it. Which is well and good intellectually but an approach I found somewhat fundamentally nihilistic and depressing. Again, it's not a bad book at all, but I found myself just disliking its world-view.
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# ? Mar 20, 2009 18:48 |
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Calenth posted:The Player of Games seemed like he was pulling a reverse Heinlein and using sci-fi to take cheap shots at opposing ideologies -- i.e., he's positing a post-scarcity environment, then writing a sci-fi novel attacking a capitalist (and conveniently also inherently sexist, etc.) society because, hey, look, they aren't an enlightened post-scarcity socialist economy! How evil of them! Of course, plenty of great SF has been just a political vehicle -- from H.G. Wells on down -- so that's not really a criticism as such, just something I personally found irritating. It seemed like he was taking cheap shots. It's been a while since I read PoG, but they aren't really capitalist, are they? More like feudalist/caste system/meritocratic. Also, I wonder if I could get your interpretation of the ending? I kind of think that he essentially falls in love with the savage beauty of the Azadian society, realises he's won the ultimate game and got back to the sterile Culture with a woman who he'll never "possess" in the way the Azadians do so he commits suicide. Anything to add?
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# ? Mar 20, 2009 23:05 |
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HoldYourFire posted:It's been a while since I read PoG, but they aren't really capitalist, are they? More like feudalist/caste system/meritocratic. Also, I wonder if I could get your interpretation of the ending? I kind of think Where on earth did you get the idea that he commits suicide? And he didn't fall in love with Azad the society at all, just Azad the game.
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# ? Mar 20, 2009 23:07 |
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Entropic posted:Where on earth did you get the idea that he commits suicide? And he didn't fall in love with Azad the society at all, just Azad the game. We'll never know; if you're reading this he's long dead; had his appointment with the displacement drone and been zapped to the very livid heart of the system, corpse blasted to plasma in the vast erupting core of Chiark's sun,... Could be argued this happened years and years after everything else in the book though.
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# ? Mar 21, 2009 00:12 |
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Away Message posted:Could be argued this happened years and years after everything else in the book though.
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# ? Mar 21, 2009 02:53 |
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Am I alone in thinking Complicity was utter poo poo? Loser with no redeeming characteristics plays some Civ, rapes some peeps, slaughters some dogs... yeah, raping the husband with his wife's pink dildo (in loving detail ) was as far as I made it into that book, and I haven't picked up a Banks book since. Which is a shame, because I adored The Wasp Factory and The Bridge, which I've noticed a few people listing with Complicity as favorites. I even liked The Business for what it was -- a nice, unambitious airport book. But gently caress Complicity with a lotion-smeared pink dildo, what the loving gently caress.
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# ? Mar 21, 2009 10:40 |
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Psiharis posted:Am I alone in thinking Complicity was utter poo poo? Loser with no redeeming characteristics plays some Civ, rapes some peeps, slaughters some dogs... yeah, raping the husband with his wife's pink dildo (in loving detail ) was as far as I made it into that book, and I haven't picked up a Banks book since.
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# ? Mar 21, 2009 13:02 |
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Entropic posted:That's certainly how I took it. He's had "centuries later" epilogues in half the other Culture books. I didn't think of it that way, fair enough.
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# ? Mar 21, 2009 15:33 |
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Hello Pity posted:He can get some mixed reviews because of this, what some percieve as over-the-top nastiness/grittiness, I've always felt was actually intended as tongue-in-cheek, hyperbolic nastiness. To me it's all whacky and zany. If you're expecting anything else I suspect you may be disapointed. Would you place Look to Windward in this category? There are obviously some wacky points but overall I think the tone is a little more serious than some of his other books.
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# ? Mar 22, 2009 02:46 |
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Danhenge posted:Would you place Look to Windward in this category? There are obviously some wacky points but overall I think the tone is a little more serious than some of his other books. Almost all of Banks' books seem to have their non-serious and even comedic moments, but an overall serious point to them. I mean the conversation about ship-names in Look To Windward isn't exactly, well, infused with gravitas now is it? Or the bit about "pylon country"? But moments like those are silly in a way that serves the story, they show you how Culture people think, and why they think their way of doing things is so great.
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# ? Mar 22, 2009 03:05 |
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Do not, under any circumstances, try and read Canal Dreams. Banks was attempting to write a Graham Greene? John La Carre style thriller with depth. But it just starts out boring and eventually dissolves into ridiculousness. So far this is the only 'M'-less book I’ve tried, and it disappointed me beyond words. However I cannot recommend The Algebraist, Player of Games and Use Of Weapons enough.
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# ? Mar 22, 2009 16:48 |
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Sadsack posted:Do not, under any circumstances, try and read Canal Dreams. Banks was attempting to write a Graham Greene? John La Carre style thriller with depth. But it just starts out boring and eventually dissolves into ridiculousness. So far this is the only 'M'-less book I’ve tried, and it disappointed me beyond words. Yeah, I got halfway through Canal Dreams before giving up. His first three, The Wasp Factory, Walking On Glass and The Bridge are all highly recommended though. They all read like an author writing regular fiction when he secretly wanted to be an SF writer. Which was pretty much the case. Hoping to make a good dent in Inversions today, it's the only Culture book I haven't finished yet.
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# ? Mar 22, 2009 17:42 |
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Away Message posted:Almost at the end: When citizens of the Culture die, they typically have their bodies displaced into the sun. I don't believe this passage indicates that he chose to end his life. Awesome Culture novel though, probably my favorite. parsleyc fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Mar 22, 2009 |
# ? Mar 22, 2009 21:51 |
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It's been years since I read some of the books but if I recall rightly about the interpretations. Player of games: He was getting disillusioned with the playing of games. Less interested, even cheated and then heard that the player he cheated got a perfect score. Azad and the destruction and absorbtion of the unpleasant society through his playing of the game actually meant he achieved something of an importance through game playing and thus it reinvigorated him. Also I don't know if I've imagined it or not but wasn't the drone amtiskaw whom Gurgeh didn't get along with actually his old drone friend in disguise. This meant that the culture had been playing him quite possibly for a long time in order to get him to fulfil a destiny set out for him and a goal for them. If not Please berate me if I'm wrong, but it's been such a long time. A thing to note about Matter: (I've listened to the audiobook so forgive wrong spelling) The Iln were one of the machine swarm species that the xelecene god beast creatures dealt with in the far past. That's why it was torturing it and before it said "NO FORGIVENESS". Also it wondered at the weird bio creatures as it held djan's head and spine. I felt that the central characters, the royal ones and holsk all went on a journey to matter. They were all pretty likeable characters, even Prince Thurbin who redeemed himself from being very arrogant to finally being noble. Also as a side note even tough Djan and the ship and the drone (as they were SC) are or may be backed up, but they lose that precious exerience of mattering. The quest to matter even when you are insignificant was what the book implied to me. The books are being audioed in increasing amounts so maybe a 17 hour listen of matter might suit people better. The narrator is pretty good with all kinds of different accents. Morganveld sound welsh! Please rate the ship names I've thought of so far: GSV Forbidden cupboard of mystery and wonder. ROU Reversing bus blunder. FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Mar 23, 2009 |
# ? Mar 23, 2009 22:33 |
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FelchTragedy posted:Also I don't know if I've imagined it or not
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# ? Mar 23, 2009 23:16 |
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Psiharis posted:yeah, raping the husband with his wife's pink dildo (in loving detail ) was as far as I made it into that book, and I haven't picked up a Banks book since. Wasn't that bad, they were just role-playing.
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# ? Mar 25, 2009 00:16 |
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My favourite action scene is properly the start of Excession, where that brave little droid keeps having to shunt its memory core into progressively more basic processors. From high-level quantum computers right through to the worst available - of course it's a squishy ball of grey matter I don't think this is a spoiler, btw, as it happens in the first few pages. Anyway, like Excession, which ranks as my top M book, it's pure spaceship porn without any wanky ST-esque technobabble. Or, at least, the tech stuff is fabulously sexy. I'm surprised that there isn't more love for The State of the Art. The mains short story in the collection is, outside of the obvious like War & Peace etc. in my opinion, the most illuminating out of all the books I've read that deal with 'the human condition'. The scene at the end, when the character who 'went native' (I don't remember his name, it's been a while) is shown to be sallow-skinned, withdrawn and clearly self-dillusional, yet still insists on his happiness really does speak to me about what we're like. Yes, it's a bit clumsy and obvious when I read it now, and nostalgia is probably colouring its effect on me in somewhat (I first read it in 1996, so I was thirteen. It came free on the front of a PC games magazine. Best freebie ever!), but still... I can't think of many books, least of all sci-fi, that tackle this issue and against a (dark) background of ultra-high-tech machinery and god-like AI, for Banks to conclude the story with the tale of a very basic humanoid who is confused and lonely, to focus in on that rather than the world-destroying spaceship floating above, is a very gusty thing to do. At least I think so, anyway. And of course the GCU is just a riot. Best spaceship name? 'Ethics Gradient'. Best quote? 'It looks like a dildo,' she said. 'How appropriate,' the droid said 'fully armed, it can gently caress solar systems.' Or something like that.
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# ? Mar 25, 2009 14:10 |
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I was a bit unhappy that the radio verion of state of the art seemed to skip over the relation of the name to story to what it meant in the story.
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# ? Mar 25, 2009 20:58 |
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Just finished "Inversions" the other day, so I've now officially read all the Culture books. I think it would probably more enjoyable going in to it not knowing that it's a Culture book. Once you figure out that Doctor Vosill is a Culture agent (which is so obvious so early on I probably needn't have spoilered it), it kind of ruins any genuine suspense you might have about the character's predicament. How much danger can someone really be in in a medieval society when they've got a godly interstellar civilization backing them and probably have a deadly Drone lurking somewhere nearby to guard them? In a lot of ways it felt like a tentative dry-run for "Matter".
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# ? Apr 8, 2009 05:06 |
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Great writer, I love the Culture novels. Use of Weapons is easily in my top 5; the last page was absolutely brutal. The mix of absolutely hilarious comedy that is followed so quickly by complete despairing tragedy is insane. Since it's getting to be a fad, my favorite ship name has to be Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again. quote:Reading Banks for the first time, Use of Weapons, and the order of the book is seriously sapping my enjoyment. I hate having a pretty interesting narrative completely and frequently interrupted by a little disjointed historical scene from Zak's life. I also feel completely in the dark regarding character's motivations and why they act the way they do. Zakalwe in particular seems the most schizophrenic, especially with the revelations about his past. For the love of God, finish. It seems like a very strange book that doesn't make much sense until literally the very end, and then "Oh....that's an incredible piece of writing." Space Monster fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Apr 8, 2009 |
# ? Apr 8, 2009 06:01 |
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John C, Wright doesn't like The Player of Games and some other books, is a pretentious wanker. Also, John Crowley popping up in the comments section to defend his book.
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# ? Apr 9, 2009 04:18 |
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Space Monster posted:For the love of God, finish. It seems like a very strange book that doesn't make much sense until literally the very end, and then "Oh....that's an incredible piece of writing." I just finished after putting it down for a couple weeks, more out of ocd than genuine interest. The ending was cool, I didn't care a lick for Zakalwe so I was just like 'hehe twisty'. Reading it as a comedy definitely helped, the part where Zakalwe fights the voiceless guy was funny. Oh and to correct that list that was posted earlier, chronologically the prologue and epilogue most likely happen last. It's the only place where bald Zakalwe makes sense.
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# ? Apr 9, 2009 04:31 |
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JgPz posted:I just finished after putting it down for a couple weeks, more out of ocd than genuine interest. The ending was cool, I didn't care a lick for Zakalwe so I was just like 'hehe twisty'. Reading it as a comedy definitely helped, the part where Zakalwe fights the voiceless guy was funny. I read the book in one sitting and managed to become very immersed in the book, I became emotionally attached to Zakalwe and so the end really hit me pretty hard.
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# ? Apr 9, 2009 06:27 |
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There are only 2 authors the books of whom I will preorder at the first glimmering hint, then hoard in perfect hardback glory for all eternity. Iain M. Banks is one, I attribute this wholly to having read Excessions first, at the age of 15. It blew my mind wide open and I have all the M books in hardback, cause I'm a obsessive idiot and you've got to spend your money somewhere, right? I liked the idea of against a dark background alluding to so many different things. My favourite was that the closest star was a million lightyears away. I liked the departure from the culture with the Algebraist, particularly how in 1 paragraph you are introduced to the Archmandrite Luciferous the third and have the depth of his insane cruelty laid open for you. What are we due next? I haven't looked for any rumours recently. Ship names - I blame my mother I blame your mother
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# ? Apr 15, 2009 13:51 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 06:30 |
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It should be an M-less next, since Matter was last. Haven't heard any hints as to what it's going to be about.
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# ? Apr 15, 2009 14:22 |