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BastardySkull posted:This is from a while back but on the mock-up I have for Use of Weapons at the moment I haven't strayed too far from the current UK cover version. I have the ship on the front but on the back I've mocked up a chair actually made from bones. I would say that showing a chair would not be a major spoiler. Showing it made of bones would be far too much of one. Silhouette, maybe?
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Mar 14, 2011 12:05
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Cover talk Black silhouette of a man, head in hands sitting in a bone white chair possibly? Surface Detail If i remember it correctly, Zakalwe is actually a triple agent this scenario, he's working for the Pro-hell faction inside the Anti-Hell faction, while also in the pay of the Culture as a mole inside the Pro-hell camp. He's just been doing it all for so long he can't keep straight exactly who he's working for. I might be wrong, it's been a while since i read it.
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Mar 21, 2011 00:10
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Just come across this interview with Banks with the Open University over here in Britain. He talks about 'about various topics, including the digitisation of books, his writing process and the impact of world events on his work'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAwVkQ-0_u0&feature=player_embedded Good for anyone interested in Banks himself. I enjoy his subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) inclusion and allusion to his own politics, so I always enjoy to hear from him personally.
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Apr 2, 2011 12:43
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I thought I'd drop this here
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May 8, 2011 23:13
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God drat, I'd kill for those covers. Edit: Just to add, I'm really loving Excession and Matter, but they are seriously fantastic.
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May 9, 2011 00:58
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Great covers! Matter is my favourite of them. The battleship on the front of Use of Weapons reminds me of a Rorschach test inkblot, which suits the story.
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May 9, 2011 02:00
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drat those are nice! I wish they could be the real covers, I really like the Matter one as well.
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May 9, 2011 02:43
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No "Inversions"?
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May 9, 2011 04:54
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I'm glad you guys like them. I've got the back covers and the spine images as well which I'll post when its all done.Turpitude posted:Great covers! Matter is my favourite of them. The battleship on the front of Use of Weapons reminds me of a Rorschach test inkblot, which suits the story. Haha I'm glad you noticed this. It was far more like this at first but then I played it down. Entropic posted:No "Inversions"? These are only the ones that specifically state 'A Culture Novel' on the front. Its a university project so I've done that to cut down my workload, State of the Art is missing as well. I'm lazy. Plus I haven't read it yet, I'm quarter of the way through.
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May 9, 2011 18:06
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Missing 'The State of the Art' too but it isn't a fully fledged book really.
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May 9, 2011 20:19
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Just wanted to chime in that while I was GIS'ing the covers to Consider Phlebas, I stumbled on what appears to be I think your take on the Sleeper Service is drat cool. I would buy a set of these books with your cover in a second. Lasting Damage fucked around with this message at 03:10 on May 10, 2011 |
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May 9, 2011 20:31
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Lasting Damage posted:I think your take on the Sleeper Service is drat cool. Seconding this, it's a unique take on the vague design set out in the books (and I never did like the idea that they had "outriggers")
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May 10, 2011 09:29
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Seconding this, it's a unique take on the vague design set out in the books (and I never did like the idea that they had "outriggers") The main problem with thinking of how to visualise the GSV is that Banks is really vague, thats true. Its a mock-project but I still need to try and think 'what does and doesn't work when you're looking at this in a shop' and made a decision early on that I'd have to make it look distinctively like a spaceship, otherwise people would get confused. The excuse I've used with other Banks fans is that GSV's are highly malleable so they can be any shape. I only called this one the Sleeper Service because I think thats my favorite ship personality (alongside Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints). I always imaged the outriggers as just floating, separate bits of ship that are held within the field enclosure but then you'd have to fly tot hem and it'd make no sense.
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May 10, 2011 13:26
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Not so much "fly" as "ride the elevator/spaceship"
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May 11, 2011 04:30
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BastardySkull posted:The main problem with thinking of how to visualise the GSV is that Banks is really vague, thats true. Its a mock-project but I still need to try and think 'what does and doesn't work when you're looking at this in a shop' and made a decision early on that I'd have to make it look distinctively like a spaceship, otherwise people would get confused. It's really great man, you should try your hand at a more "populated" GSV. There's a great description in Look To Windward when Quilan first gets a look inside the outer field enclosure and it's full of smaller ships of all sizes, people in microlights, jetpacks etc.
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May 11, 2011 05:24
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:It's really great man, you should try your hand at a more "populated" GSV. There's a great description in Look To Windward when Quilan first gets a look inside the outer field enclosure and it's full of smaller ships of all sizes, people in microlights, jetpacks etc. Yeah and the good bit where they nearly crash through a cloud of flying people in Consider Phlebas. I think if I was to do another GSV it'd be far more like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO9ugnn8DbE
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May 11, 2011 18:58
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I think at this point I'm the only person keeping this thread alive, but people appreciated the rest so I'll post these back-covers. I've removed the text and they are quite small, so you'll have to try and guess what's what they're in order of publishing And here's some stuff for the appendix of Matter, as if Choubris Holse kept a notebook or something. http://colouredvapour.blogspot.com/2011/05/holses-notebook.html
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May 15, 2011 06:58
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The nonary is a nice touch.
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May 16, 2011 00:11
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Those own so hard. Is there any way you could post the Matter front cover without the text? I really want it as a background for my phone.
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May 16, 2011 05:31
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Those own so hard. Is there any way you could post the Matter front cover without the text? I really want it as a background for my phone. No bother. Here you go.  Here are two more to bookend Matter.  This last one is spoilered, though the image its not too spoilery really.
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May 16, 2011 07:51
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BastardySkull posted:I think at this point I'm the only person keeping this thread alive, but people appreciated the rest so I'll post these back-covers. I've removed the text and they are quite small, so you'll have to try and guess what's what they're in order of publishing By all means keep the thread alive, this is really cool stuff. Took me a bit of guessing to realize the back cover to Matter is the Nameless City! Its fun to see how other people visualize things from the books, and also cool how despite having only a descriptions of them I can still recognize what you're trying to do. I have a couple questions if its not too much trouble. First is, would you mind sharing larger versions of all this? Second, does the Marain on those notes say anything?
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May 16, 2011 09:08
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Lasting Damage posted:By all means keep the thread alive, this is really cool stuff. Took me a bit of guessing to realize the back cover to Matter is the Nameless City! Its fun to see how other people visualize things from the books, and also cool how despite having only a descriptions of them I can still recognize what you're trying to do. First, how large would you want it? They go up to around 3000 x 4600. When I have a minute I'll see if imgur can handle it and post it all here maybe. Second, yes the Marain script does say something. Some of it is straight from the appendix, the rest are excerpts from the book. For example under the Morthanveld one its a description of the Director General. In my opinion the font isn't 'right' because the font uses the latin alphabet as a base. The little annotations on some of them are more faithful tot he original Marain that Banks jotted down and thats what I tried to use. 
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May 16, 2011 15:48
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BastardySkull posted:I always imaged the outriggers as just floating, separate bits of ship that are held within the field enclosure but then you'd have to fly tot hem and it'd make no sense. The System-class GSVs are described as being discrete components and not entirely single structures, so this is supported. And that's fine, it's not like you wouldn't be taking an elevator or something around a ship slash city that size anyway, and there's no reason an elevator can't whip across empty space in a Culture-level ship. I always though of a GSV as being vaguely oval in shape, of course with lots of surface detail and parks. I think some have been described as having an environment that wraps around the whole thing rather than just the top, so they look like small flying planets rather than floating islands. But then others just have topside parks and big terraced sides.
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May 19, 2011 09:46
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MikeJF posted:The System-class GSVs are described as being discrete components and not entirely single structures, so this is supported. And that's fine, it's not like you wouldn't be taking an elevator or something around a ship slash city that size anyway, and there's no reason an elevator can't whip across empty space in a Culture-level ship. The idea with the image was that the perspective was from 'inside' the field enclosure so it'd all be air, and if you zoomed out you would rush past the mesh of fields and just see a boring silver bubble. But to give the impression that the top is a landscape in an image you just have to make the atmosphere there more prominent. Also he talks about invisible fields between levels of air to make sure the air pressure at the 'bottom' of the GSV isn't immense. Which is pretty clever. People should scroll up and watch that vid of the menger sponge thing if you haven't already, it owns and in my mind thats what a true GSV would be like.
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May 19, 2011 10:23
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BastardySkull posted:The idea with the image was that the perspective was from 'inside' the field enclosure so it'd all be air, and if you zoomed out you would rush past the mesh of fields and just see a boring silver bubble. Oh yeah, I know they're just kinda like fuzzy silvery bubbles from the outside, but I always had them mentally generally following that shape inside too, especially on the ones where the parklike surface wraps the whole way around the outside. I'm not really that fond of the whole idea of jagged edges and enormous plates and the like. I like the detail in between them, though.
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May 20, 2011 11:22
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MikeJF posted:Oh yeah, I know they're just kinda like fuzzy silvery bubbles from the outside, but I always had them mentally generally following that shape inside too, especially on the ones where the parklike surface wraps the whole way around the outside. I'm not really that fond of the whole idea of jagged edges and enormous plates and the like. I like the detail in between them, though. The problem with this is that they're not that thick. One of the Plate classes is 53 km long, 22 km wide and 4 km thick barring fields (according to wikipedia anyway, this is probably the Sleeper Service). At the same time, for that to work it would have to be highly elliptical itself, and using those dimensions probably hollow (General Bays?) as the light-strip thing is (as far as I know) around the inside of the field enclosure. At no point does the park-surface escape the field enclosure. The reason I used plates was that they'd be easy to shift about, detach, etc. There is a part in Excession where the Sleeper Service lifts open a door and a plate slides a ton of rock and material into a chute. However there is the Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly, another Plate class, where the docking bays and everything seem to rise up above or to either side of the park surface, as Lededje is looking at them while standing at the edge of the drop. When looking down, there are other park-like bits on the side, but she doesn't describe there being anything at the 'bottom' of the drop which led me to think of the cliff-like, flat-topped 'plate' ish design. System class GSV's sound very much like what you're describing though.
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May 20, 2011 12:09
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Reading the last few posts make me want to go through every Culture book again. drat.
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May 22, 2011 18:09
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BastardySkull posted:First, how large would you want it? They go up to around 3000 x 4600. When I have a minute I'll see if imgur can handle it and post it all here maybe. Having just finished the culture series, I love these images and would love if the full sized versions could be hosted somewhere.
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May 22, 2011 21:03
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I just finished The Steep Approach Garbadale and honestly can't understand the crappy reviews it gets. Unfortunately for me, I read it only about a month after reading The Crow Road , which meant that the similarities were a little obvious ( Sophie almost taking the place of Rory in being the character we always hear about in the past, but never seem to meet in the present ) And admittedly the fact that Alban and Sophie are more incestuous than we thought was kind of guessable reasonably far from the end. However, I don't think this took away from my enjoyment of the book, as even when I thought I'd got it figured out, there was more to it than I thought. Overall, good story, great characters, funny narrative as ever, and I personally like the way he slips in his commie politics. So why the hate for this book?
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May 23, 2011 18:02
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octan3 posted:Having just finished the culture series, I love these images and would love if the full sized versions could be hosted somewhere. Same here, if you're able. If hosting it on something like imgur doesn't work, try looking into one of the various free cloud storage services like dropbox etc.
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May 24, 2011 01:53
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crazyvanman posted:So why the hate for this book? I didn't know people hated it, but I thought it was a bit mediocre. The ending was telegraphed so far ahead that it wasn't a surprise in the slightest, and it contains the most incredibly hamhanded caricature of an american that I've ever seen in a book - and he's not so much "slipping in" his politics as he is beating us over the head with them. Which is kind of annoying even though I agree with him.
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May 24, 2011 04:11
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I didn't know people hated it, but I thought it was a bit mediocre. The ending was telegraphed so far ahead that it wasn't a surprise in the slightest, and it contains the most incredibly hamhanded caricature of an american that I've ever seen in a book - and he's not so much "slipping in" his politics as he is beating us over the head with them. Which is kind of annoying even though I agree with him. Hehe yeah Banks "slips in" his politics the same way Avatar had a hidden message.
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Jun 1, 2011 04:44
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MikeJF posted:Oh yeah, I know they're just kinda like fuzzy silvery bubbles from the outside, but I always had them mentally generally following that shape inside too, especially on the ones where the parklike surface wraps the whole way around the outside. I'm not really that fond of the whole idea of jagged edges and enormous plates and the like. I like the detail in between them, though. I always got the impression that Culture ships looked like whatever the hell they wanted to. They could be a giant monolithic 'traditional' space ship, a cluster of miniature planets linked together with fields, an archipelago, or a big dildo. While the GCUs and various attack craft seem more utilitarian and traditional, the GSVs are extravagantly varied. I don't recall Banks ever saying what defines the different classes of ships, except maybe just overall size.
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Jun 2, 2011 23:22
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If I recall correctly (can't remember which novel said this though) the biggest GSVs are even too much for a single Mind to handle and are run by committee. A committee of gods for a single spaceship.
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Jun 3, 2011 00:03
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andrew smash posted:If I recall correctly (can't remember which novel said this though) the biggest GSVs are even too much for a single Mind to handle and are run by committee. A committee of gods for a single spaceship. Not sure if its because its too much for one mind to manage. Sleeper Service was apparently run by a triumvirate of minds until one somehow forced the others to leave before going eccentric. In any case that ship was supposed to be run by three, but one mind managed it fine. Maybe its when it has millions of people crawling all over it that management gets too hard.
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Jun 3, 2011 00:42
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It's supposed to be a safety mechanism, just in case one Mind goes crazy the other two are around to stop it. Obviously that's been.. less than successful. I think Banks himself has probably abandoned the idea anyway, it was mentioned in Excession, then never again AFAIK.
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Jun 3, 2011 00:58
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The scenes in the latest book (whose name I already forget) were pretty interesting in that regard. The GSVs are so big that they often have MANY minds hanging out on them (due to the number of ships docked with the GSVs). I got the impression there were upwards of dozens/hundreds of Minds on a GSV at any given time.
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Jun 3, 2011 01:16
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I think the triumvirates were purely to give the Minds other Minds to talk to without any delays in the conversation. There was no technical reason for it beyond three being the common number for a stable arrangement.
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Jun 3, 2011 03:56
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Especially when you have Orbitals managing the lives of billions of inhabitants perfectly well with just a single Mind (and sometimes without one).
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Jun 3, 2011 06:30
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The Dark One posted:Especially when you have Orbitals managing the lives of billions of inhabitants perfectly well with just a single Mind (and sometimes without one). IIRC (this was in player of games maybe?) Orbitals are seen as quaint backwaters compared to the big GSVs. I'll concede that they apparently don't *need* extra minds though.
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Jun 3, 2011 13:31
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