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LtSmash posted:The Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is pretty great. And while it didn't make much impact when I first read the book whats going on when we first meet it is pretty mind boggling. Culture people are in a 'war' bar and are watching live feeds of people fighting to the death elsewhere in the galaxy. That's horrifying and all on its own but the Culture has its hand in most of the wars out there. They are relaxing watching people kill each other in wars they collectively set in motion. And this is utopia? This is one of the recurring themes of the culture books - for all the normal humans and drones and minds to enjoy a kickass utopia with all kinds of hobbies like lava surfing and poo poo you need a certain element that is willing to get dirty in ways that prissy future humanists won't and that can attract (require?) some extremely unsavory personalities.
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Oct 13, 2011 04:59
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Flipswitch posted:One book I haven't seen discussed much is Surface Detail, what do you guys think about it? I thought it was decent but definitely didn't match up to any of the previous books. I was able to enjoy it, but it's definitely not one of the better Culture books. I liked the warship, watching Veppers twirl his moustach, the scenes inside the Culture, and the first half of Lededje's arc, but the plot is a complete mess. Yime's arc is completely superfluous, Lededje's arc is rendered pretty much pointless by not killing Veppers when she had the chance, and the arrangements between Veppers and the Hell factions don't make a drat bit of sense. So the pro-Hell people entrusted their simulation to some fungus growing under some rich dude's estate (which he regularly shoots to pieces on his morning commute) in some comparatively savage civilization? Isn't that a bit like entrusting an important server farm to some stone-age New Guinea highlanders? And why didn't the anti-Hell guys tell him to gently caress off when he claimed he knew where the Hells were hosted, but he wasn't going to tell them until after they had constructed a billion-ship warfleet? It really strains credibility that a civilization as godlike as the Culture couldn't sniff out the location on its own, anyway. They couldn't have just disassembled the Soulkeepers (or whatever they used), or waited for an alien to die and tracked the data transmission? And apparently DRM will still be enforceable in the "interstellar empire" stage of civilization? And regarding Lededje, I thought the whole reason the Culture transported her back home (on a "rogue" warship) was so that they could kill Veppers with some level of deniability. "See? We didn't kill Veppers, that woman with obvious motive who we resurrected from the dead and rushed back to him as quick as we could did!" So unless I misinterpreted that part, doesn't having the warship kill Veppers pretty much bork the entire mission? I really wish Banks would find a brutally honest editor and start taking his advice to heart. There's actually a really solid Culture novel here underneath some clunky plot structure and portions that should have been cut. The same could be said for Matter, I think. It's like the guy has been handing his first drafts straight to the printing presses lately. Finally, I'm kind of displeased with the turn Banks has taken toward Involved galactic diplomacy. It's just my subjective taste, but I liked things better when the diplomacy was a lot more informal (or just hidden from us) and the Culture was more of an unstoppable puppetmaster sticking it's do-gooder nose into everyone else's business. The galaxy felt a lot more wild and unexplored back in the earlier novels. Now it feels like the Culture has to negotiate three levels of bureaucracy and get its papers stamped in duplicate just to move the protagonists into the action.
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Oct 14, 2011 01:29
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LtSmash posted:I enjoyed it overall but it was kind of weak. There were some interesting threads but it just didn't seem as well developed as the other books. The hells, the Culture section that deals with sublimed, some more involved politics, what it means to be alive when virtual realities are real and the many simultaneous existences of Vatueil. The Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is a psychopath. It's a warship which happens to have that psychology mode always switched on it seems. It could of course be the natural personality of the Mind. It gives this away in it's lack of caring or lyinig about caring. For instance the bit when Led talks about her rapes and TFOTNMC says"I'm so sorry." chilled me becasue it wasn't. Lack of care. It had a mission and later reveals an opinion of hating the biological shitbags or whatever to the Naptra Reliquarius ship. That might be a lie too but it seems right. The almost-fustration of having to keep her alive in a battle. The War bar where it doesn't give a poo poo, and then the 'I'm so friendly' bit when he tries to coax her on board. The gift of the tattoo - psychopaths give gifts to people that they consider treasured pets that they find useful or entertain them. (I know I have had it happen to me). Then at the end he kills Veppers to save her doing it. She has been abused enough and vengence won't help her and he was built for that job. He ultimately wanted to kill lots of ships as his innate want and then, secondly mission's purpose demanded. Also sociopaths are insubbordinate, demonstarted by his difficult person avatar at the trial at the end. I think killing Veppers was a whim. He also had a 'pet' fondness for Led. She had opened up her personal experiences of the worst kind to him and it had a level of fascination, so it did it for her even though it didn't have to. 1) Because the idea of this in the book is that -what if a slap drone is actually a Mind. 2) World building I guess. They had to represnt the three factions of SC and their relationship to each other. Also below the surface detail, she was a spy. Lots of characters had an underneath personality that contradicted what they seemed to be. There was also a mention of the surface detail of the orbital where Led lived chucked in at the end I think. My tuppence.
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Oct 17, 2011 18:53
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LtSmash posted:Does anyone like Transition? I thought it was breathtakingly bad. I never cared about who any of the characters were, what they were doing, why they were doing it, or what would happen next. The whole book felt like he had a half remembered dream about the transitioning concept and decided to just bang a book out for the hell of it that ended up lacking everything everything else I expect from and enjoy about Banks' writing. I really liked Transition. It felt like a strong exercise in restrained allegory where the author didn't lose control and just give everything away. How to communicate trans-dimensional, alien otherness within the constraints of what is potentially conceivable. Also, anal probes.
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Oct 22, 2011 00:05
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Anyone here read The Algebraist? Finished reading it a short while ago and thought it was a nice change from the usual Culture books. The character designs and worldbuilding were very creative, and I liked how the main character (and quite a few of the other guys) spends most of his time in a spacesuit because not everyone breathes the same air. However seems that Banks can't quite get away without having a liberal utopia somewhere and we end up with the Dwellers who are basically the Culture, except nonhuman, and living in gas giants. Would be interesting to see more of that universe, but he seems to have abandoned it since.
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Oct 23, 2011 01:23
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I used to be an avid Banks fan but the Culture novels eventually soured on me, so I abandoned Banks for several years - The Algebraist did tempt me back with the fact that it wasn't a Culture book. I felt that it had some interesting worldbuilding, with the Dwellers and their concept of "respect economy" with kudos as currency, which was an intriguing thought about how a post-scarcity utopia might still have drive and motivation. I do notice that Banks is starting to plagiarise himself, though - there's a scene in the Algebraist which he lifts directly from the sex-in-Morse-code incident in The Crow Road.
kapparomeo fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Oct 24, 2011 |
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Oct 23, 2011 16:10
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Z the IVth posted:Anyone here read The Algebraist? Finished reading it a short while ago and thought it was a nice change from the usual Culture books. The character designs and worldbuilding were very creative, and I liked how the main character (and quite a few of the other guys) spends most of his time in a spacesuit because not everyone breathes the same air. However seems that Banks can't quite get away without having a liberal utopia somewhere and we end up with the Dwellers who are basically the Culture, except nonhuman, and living in gas giants. Would be interesting to see more of that universe, but he seems to have abandoned it since. I thought the Dwellers exhibited the some traits that we occasionally see in Minds, but I wouldn't say their society was much like the Culture, what with the chasing and enslaving of children (along with frequent child deaths, if I remember correctly), blood sports and aggressively isolationist policies. Their total disregard for the suffering of other life forms isn't very Culture-y either. Everything else I agree with and I do think it's a shame he hasn't returned to what seems like a much more violent and tech-limited (non-FTL travel only apart from wormholes) universe.
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Oct 23, 2011 16:56
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Yeah, the Dwellers were more like a slightly-less-horrible Affront. I doubt you'd find the culture literally eating and/or enslaving their young. The fact that they're not just decadent layabouts and have super weapons deep in their planets but just don't have a good reason to use them most of the time is awesome though.
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Oct 24, 2011 10:29
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Nah, their young just spend several thousand years being hunted for sport by their elders.
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Oct 24, 2011 14:24
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Alien psychology may seem more cruel because you can tweak the cooperation or the competition of a species with itself up or down. Antagonists probably will have some competition tweaked up in whatever respects usually.
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Oct 25, 2011 01:58
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gender illusionist posted:Really? Is it available anywhere? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2d4zgvipME Oh by the way BBC are doing Wasp Factory for Bookclub which starts today, but also repeated on Thursday and will also be available for a week after that on Iplayer. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006s5sf FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Nov 6, 2011 |
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Nov 6, 2011 21:03
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Amused Frog posted:I thought the Dwellers exhibited the some traits that we occasionally see in Minds, but I wouldn't say their society was much like the Culture, what with the chasing and enslaving of children (along with frequent child deaths, if I remember correctly), blood sports and aggressively isolationist policies. Their total disregard for the suffering of other life forms isn't very Culture-y either.
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Nov 8, 2011 00:47
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I finished The Player of Games recently, and boy was it cool. This is my second Culture novel, after Consider Phlebas, and I like the willingness Banks has to mention epic events without making them a focus. There's just so much going on that there's no room for all of these massive events and megastructures to get more than passing glances here and there. Like in Consider Phlebas, he mentions pockets of Idirans leaving the galaxy to start over in another one. Or the image of Shohobohaum Za leading offensive fronts against the Empire of Azad in its twilight. Banks does a great job describing uncomfortable scenes. The stuff with the tv feeds meant for the upper crust of Azad was pretty wild and I felt like I was right there, reacting the same way as Gurgeh, while he watched.
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Nov 25, 2011 20:42
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Fray posted:I loved the Dwellers because Banks spends the whole book building up the villain as the most sadistic, brutal, psychopathic monster who ever lived, and then his methods are completely ineffective in the face of incomprehensible alien psychology. I loved the hostage situation where it really begins to show that he's in completely over his head with the dwellers.
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Nov 26, 2011 02:02
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Okay, I've got a question about drones in the Culture. Aren't drones considered to be citizens or whatever since the Culture operates on sentience? I'm reading Use of Weapons and Skaffen-Amtiskaw seems to be taking orders from and sometimes acting as a servant to Dizziet Sma- does Special Circumstances operate under different rules, then?
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Dec 17, 2011 09:18
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Pope Guilty posted:Okay, I've got a question about drones in the Culture. Aren't drones considered to be citizens or whatever since the Culture operates on sentience? I'm reading Use of Weapons and Skaffen-Amtiskaw seems to be taking orders from and sometimes acting as a servant to Dizziet Sma- does Special Circumstances operate under different rules, then? I think that's pretty much just a rank thing. Even though they supposedly don't have rank, in SC and so on I think some beings are placed under the command of others.
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Dec 17, 2011 09:21
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It isn't too formal though, as in there doesn't seem to be any hierarchy Skaffen-Amtiskaw and Sma have to observe. The drone was probably just asked by someone else in SC to help out Sma as a favor, and then stuck to her side because they're friends or it likes the work (such as slicing people to bloody ribbons with its knife missiles).
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Dec 17, 2011 20:00
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Lasting Damage posted:(such as slicing people to bloody ribbons with its knife missiles). It's nice to be able to have a job that you love so much. 
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Dec 17, 2011 22:50
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Unlike that poor module in Excession that just wanted to hang out and pretend it was an awesome renaissance hero/castle/whatever.
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Dec 21, 2011 16:20
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I started reading Feersum Endjinn and I was wondering if I could skip the "weird" chapters without missing out on the general story? I tried reading that.....thing but it just gave me a headache, seriously what was he thinking? If reading that crap is necessary I'll just put down the book and start reading Matter which is the next Banks book in line for me.
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Dec 29, 2011 11:08
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TjyvTompa posted:I started reading Feersum Endjinn and I was wondering if I could skip the "weird" chapters without missing out on the general story? Read Matter then. Don't worry, one day you will be ready for Feersum Endjinn. And don't read The Bridge if you dislike the phonetic chapters in Feersum Endjinn, it's very similar.
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Dec 29, 2011 14:16
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TjyvTompa posted:I started reading Feersum Endjinn and I was wondering if I could skip the "weird" chapters without missing out on the general story? Graviton v2 fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Dec 29, 2011 |
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Dec 29, 2011 16:55
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Any UK goons who live vaguely near the Norwich area might be interested to know that Banks is doing a lecture at the UEA in May. I'm not entirely sure what it'll be about, but I'm assuming it'll focus on his work. You can book tickets here: http://www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk/events/iain-banks.aspx
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Jan 6, 2012 11:52
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Just finished Use of Weapons and I thought the Chairmaker reveal was shocking, but then the ending! I was ambivalent about the structure of the book and then the last page just completely sold me on it.
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Jan 6, 2012 14:52
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New Culture book, October 4: The Hydrogen Sonata
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Feb 23, 2012 00:44
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Hedrigall posted:New Culture book, October 4: The Hydrogen Sonata Well, suicide cancelled I guess.
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Feb 23, 2012 09:15
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That's a very odd title for a Culture book.
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Feb 23, 2012 10:31
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MikeJF posted:That's a very odd title for a Culture book. Oh great, gas giant dwellers again.
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Feb 23, 2012 11:52
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Hey, let's not go leaping to conclusions here! Hydrogen is only slightly less common than Matter 
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Feb 23, 2012 14:06
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Not unless he retcons the dwellers into the Culture-verse. My wild guess from the title is the main character (or token human at this point I guess) is a composer who accidentally (or so it appears at first) gets wrapped up in Mind business after they take an interest in him/her. Can't wait.
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Feb 23, 2012 14:09
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So, fuddy duddy old ship Mind or new, fast, fully automatic armada stomping ship Mind?
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Feb 23, 2012 16:54
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gently caress, in the space of 5 minutes I find out this news, and then that Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter are collaborating on a Sliders-esque sci-fi series. 
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Feb 23, 2012 21:25
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Oh man, this is awesome. I wonder if he'll talk about it during his lecture? If he doesn't and he allows questions, I'm going to risk being a terrible nerd and ask him about it.
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Feb 23, 2012 21:38
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poo poo, I own them all on paperback, do I get the next one for my Kindle or add to my collection... 
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Feb 23, 2012 22:15
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Flipswitch posted:poo poo, I own them all on paperback, do I get the next one for my Kindle or add to my collection... Get the actual book. I know I will. I love my Kindle and hardly buy any physical books anymore but my Banks collection is something else.
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Feb 24, 2012 07:46
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Just finished Use of Weapons. Without a doubt one of the most powerful endings of anything ever. Quick question for verification: on their century-long space voyage, the cryogenically frozen woman Elethiomel opens the coffin of and has to hold himself back not to kill, is Livvy, right?
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Feb 26, 2012 23:27
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Joramun posted:Just finished Use of Weapons. Without a doubt one of the most powerful endings of anything ever. I literally finished it about an hour ago, and that was the distinct impression I got. I think the implication is heavy, considering that Livvy says specifically that she was on the ship, but lost track of him after Sma first extracts him. I think that the moral to Consider Phlebas was really the point of the entire book.. To me, the theme seemed overwhelmingly to be that despite the visceral action of the book, Absolutely none of it mattered. At first, I was disappointed with the ending, especially considering the grand ideas of the epilogue history, but in hindsight it was a pretty good message, although unwieldy considering he used the entire book to make the point.
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Feb 27, 2012 00:45
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mcustic posted:Get the actual book. I know I will. I love my Kindle and hardly buy any physical books anymore but my Banks collection is something else. 
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Feb 27, 2012 00:47
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I hit the end of Use of Weapons and just sat there slackjawed for a little bit. Goddamn. I recently finished Player of Games, and holy poo poo but that was fun.
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Feb 27, 2012 00:55
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I've only read Player of Games by Banks so far, and my plan was to jump back to Consider Phlebas next, but all this talk of Use of Weapons' ending makes me want to pick that one up next instead. 
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Feb 27, 2012 02:25
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