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a kitten posted:e: holy crap, the wiki entries for the Culture have gotten way, way more expansive since the last time I looked.
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Mar 3, 2012 16:27
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Just finished Surface Detail. I think I like it's one of the better ones. Certainly the best out of the last few, IMO. Also, Fast Picket I'm Just Not That Into You.
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Mar 5, 2012 20:46
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Murgos posted:Fast Picket I'm Just Not That Into You. GCU Friend Zone
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Mar 5, 2012 23:54
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ROU Hugs?
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Mar 6, 2012 00:01
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GSV I'm Sorry, I Just Don't See You That Way.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:12
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GCU Oh, Were You Using That? I think I'm going to go ahead and put down the Silmarillon for a bit and re-read Surface Detail it's the only one that I haven't read more than once.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:16
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a kitten posted:It's really hard to beat Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The for ship names. Or for ships. It's breakdown in Excession when it learns about the Interesting Times Gang is absolutely brutal. Poor ship. I can't remember what happened to it in the end, did it survive? ROU Stop Hitting Yourself
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Mar 6, 2012 22:34
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What is the minds' nickname for their virtual world thing again? Something like super happy fun time space but I can't remember specifically.
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Mar 7, 2012 04:59
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Infinite Fun Space.
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Mar 7, 2012 05:02
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Infinite Fun Space still makes me laugh. Once I've finished up reading Paintwork I'll have to binge through my Culture books again.
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Mar 8, 2012 17:15
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a kitten posted:It's really hard to beat Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The for ship names. Word. It's the most exciting sequence of words in the English Language, perfectly marrying high-tech cool with base primal feelings!
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Mar 9, 2012 08:10
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I appreciate the thread. You've got my interest. I added to my ever-growing mass of books to read.
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Mar 9, 2012 19:10
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Moeru posted:I appreciate the thread. You've got my interest. I added to my ever-growing mass of books to read. While Consider Phlebas is in no way the best of the Culture books, it's worth getting through. It's a good introduction to the Culture from an outsider's perspective. Also, as far as I can tell, the series runs in chronological order - it doesn't generally make too much difference, but there's a definite progression of technology and various references to Culture history throughout. Also, GCU Oh, There Goes Gravitas
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Mar 9, 2012 21:23
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I like this cover for the Mass Market edition of Use of Weapons:
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Mar 10, 2012 00:03
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Barry Foster posted:Also, as far as I can tell, the series runs in chronological order - it doesn't generally make too much difference, but there's a definite progression of technology and various references to Culture history throughout. This blog has a Culture chronology. No idea if it's accurate.
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Mar 10, 2012 02:57
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Am I the only one who just did not buy the end of Look To Windward? Specifically the part where Masaq' Hub implied that a group of Culture Minds might be responsible for the whole plan. The justification for the plot not coming off was that Minds get to see things in four dimensions, and so the plot could never have worked. So, if the first paragraph is true, why would the second paragraph be true? Assuming that all Minds can see the issue, why would other Minds design the plot this way? I mean - assuming that Minds were behind it in the first place - there are two options: 1) they thought the plot would succeed 2) they thought it would fail but have the same effect. If 1), how would they not know that other minds would see the device in the Major's brain? And, if 2), why would they create a plot that required the use of technology that might even suggest that they were involved? Because presumably, if you're a Culture Mind, plotting to kill a few million Culture citizens is... frowned upon.
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Mar 10, 2012 07:12
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Phobeste posted:Am I the only one who just did not buy the end of Look To Windward? Specifically the part where Masaq' Hub implied that a group of Culture Minds might be responsible for the whole plan.
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Mar 10, 2012 07:40
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I just finished up a re-read of Surface Detail and I have to say that I actually liked it better the second time around. The Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints is a fantastic and fascinating character who, were I somehow to end up transported to the Culture-verse, I would hope to never, ever encounter.
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Mar 15, 2012 00:25
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If Excession was anything to judge, Culture Minds seem to be something to be very wary of.
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Mar 15, 2012 00:36
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Flipswitch posted:If Excession was anything to judge, Culture Minds seem to be something to be very wary of. Oh, I dunno. Like all the Culture books, we only see the lunatic fringe, and most of them are still pretty level headed for the most part. Absolutely, you'd never want to even be in the same galactic quarter as Falling Outside of Normal Moral Constraints or Grey Area, but I'd imagine most of the Orbital Minds to be totally amiable. I'd much rather live in a world run by Minds, frankly.
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Mar 15, 2012 10:54
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Barry Foster posted:Oh, I dunno. Like all the Culture books, we only see the lunatic fringe, and most of them are still pretty level headed for the most part. Absolutely, you'd never want to even be in the same galactic quarter as Falling Outside of Normal Moral Constraints or Grey Area, but I'd imagine most of the Orbital Minds to be totally amiable. I'd much rather live in a world run by Minds, frankly. A world where Masaq Hub was benign dictator would be a pretty awesome. Sure, he's busy managing 50 billion souls but he'll still show up in person to all your parties and tag along when you decide to raft down an active lava tube or whatever.
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Mar 15, 2012 20:15
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I think a pretty good portrayal of what you might expect a normal mind to be like (rather than a psychopathic sadist like the Moral Constraints, snotty busybodies like Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, paranoid and obsessive schemers like the interesting times gang, or a chilled-out old veteran like masaq hub) would be the ship that lededje is initially resurrected on in surface detail - basically a mind that doesn't bother itself with the crazy poo poo that banks writes novels about but just the normal business of running a post-singularity hyper society, which honestly seems like a pretty awesome place to live.
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Mar 15, 2012 22:40
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I was reading through The Player of Games again (after Excession and Look to Windward), and feeling sad that there aren't a bunch of artist's interpretation of Banks' work. I mean there are a few here and there, but mostly they're not very interesting. I'd love to see a high quality rendition of battles in regular/hyperspace or of flying through a GSVs fields until the whole thing becomes visible. I know the books mostly aren't conducive to being made in to movies, but man there would be more than enough cool scenery/action scenes/interesting plot hooks to make one hell of an impressive trailer (especially for Excession and Consider Phlebas). I was feeling sad at the lack of art of the various ships, and so drew this on a scrap of paper I had used earlier to help with some basic special relativity math. It had also been drawn on originally by a 1st grader, my roommate student teaches art. There's enough leeway in Banks' descriptions for a lot of cool design (though I don't claim to have produced any), someday I'd like to get my art skillz back and do a proper treatment of it all. Someday...
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Mar 17, 2012 17:25
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I used to obsessively try and get my head around the scale of GSV bays by obsessively drawing sketches. I think people don't bother because the ships aren't aerodynamic.
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Mar 21, 2012 21:51
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Prolonged Priapism posted:Your relativity doodlings made me realize that Banks has, as far as I know, completely ignored time travel as a possibility in the culture series. Under relativity performing time travel is more or less trivial once you allow FTL travel, so I wonder if he just hasn't gotten around to it yet or intends to completely ignore its possibility (not an unreasonable position, to be honest).
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Mar 21, 2012 23:18
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I am OK posted:I used to obsessively try and get my head around the scale of GSV bays by obsessively drawing sketches. I think people don't bother because the ships aren't aerodynamic. Banks has said a number of times that Culture ships aren't much to look at, aesthetically. I think he describes them as "shoeboxes with the edges smoothed off". edit: Yeah, there isn't much artwork based on the Culture universe. The only neat thing I've ever found is this picture of Vavatch, which I'm currently using as my desktop:  I took it from this guy and scrubbed the Clear Air Turbulence out of the picture. He didn't have bigger versions at the time. I think GSV gently caress Your God uses it as his avatar, too. Coriolis fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 23:19
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Big culture ships are mostly fields anyway in terms of their physical shapes so pictures of them are kind of pointless.
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Mar 21, 2012 23:32
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There's that one picture floating in the thread one Goon did, I'd always imagined them as a more rounded version of that, but his version is such a well done design I've mentally substituted it.
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Mar 21, 2012 23:46
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GOU Continuation of Politics by Other Means always seemed somewhat appropriate to me.
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Mar 22, 2012 01:03
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Mr. Peepers posted:Your relativity doodlings made me realize that Banks has, as far as I know, completely ignored time travel as a possibility in the culture series. Under relativity performing time travel is more or less trivial once you allow FTL travel, so I wonder if he just hasn't gotten around to it yet or intends to completely ignore its possibility (not an unreasonable position, to be honest). As far as I can remember he has ignored it, although the fact that real light is slower than ships can move is referenced several times; After the destruction of Vavatch Horza thinks about looking at the real space view, where it hasn't been destroyed yet, and in Look to Windward Hub talks about seeing a planet orbit below the surface layers of its sun, and being able to see it after it has been destroyed via hyperspace. The speed of light being faster in hyperspace might negate the time travel thing. If we assume that ships/signals don't go faster than hyperspace light (which seems fair, there's a delay in communications between ships, and we can assume they use the fastest communication possible) then the whole thing might boil down to a more complicated version of the situation with mediums where the speed of light is slower than in vacuum (all of them, although there are a few technical exceptions). In water, for example, light travels slower than it does in air, where it is slower than in vacuum. But there are particles that end up being faster than water-lightspeed (like electrons flying off radioactive materials), and that's where the infamous blue glow of nuclear reactors comes from (Cherenkov radiation). The point is, I don't think causality gets broken in water, even though particles traveling faster than light in that medium are physically possible. So maybe 3D space is like a medium sitting in the greater 4D reality, and our slower light speed can be broken without breaking causality, because nothing is breaking the real, hyperspace light speed barrier?
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Mar 22, 2012 01:04
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I really like this render, partly because of the tiny GOUs alongside the GSV and partly because it's more or less inside a star. http://ex-pacifist.deviantart.com/art/Culture-GSV-and-escorts-94035593 BastardlySkull posted some awesome covers earlier in the thread too.
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Mar 22, 2012 01:18
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osici posted:BastardlySkull posted some awesome covers earlier in the thread too. I think this is his photostream, there are the covers as well as a GSV and assorted aliens. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukejfrost/sets/72157626729157968/with/5723720481/ 
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Mar 22, 2012 01:23
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Prolonged Priapism posted:As far as I can remember he has ignored it, although the fact that real light is slower than ships can move is referenced several times; After the destruction of Vavatch Horza thinks about looking at the real space view, where it hasn't been destroyed yet, and in Look to Windward Hub talks about seeing a planet orbit below the surface layers of its sun, and being able to see it after it has been destroyed via hyperspace. The real reason is that banks is an anarchist, not a physicist, and doesn't write time travel stories because at least to this point he hasn't wanted to. There isn't a consistency between culture universe physics and relativity because he hasn't bothered to try and come up with one. And, let's be honest - the resulting culture book would suck balls if he did.
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Mar 22, 2012 01:28
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Mr. Peepers posted:Your relativity doodlings made me realize that Banks has, as far as I know, completely ignored time travel as a possibility in the culture series. Under relativity performing time travel is more or less trivial once you allow FTL travel, so I wonder if he just hasn't gotten around to it yet or intends to completely ignore its possibility (not an unreasonable position, to be honest). Why bothering traveling in time when you can just use your self-aware black body object to travel to a younger universe? 
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Mar 22, 2012 03:02
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I suppose the fact that the Minds (or perhaps, Banks himself) never considered time traveling to a be a possible source for the Excession says it's not possible in his world.
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Mar 22, 2012 04:20
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In State of the Art they say that they have time travel, but it's limited to being able to glance into the future by roughly one millisecond. Although that's probably quite a lot of time to a Mind.
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Mar 22, 2012 04:41
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Prolonged Priapism posted:Ink Neither of those look enough like sex toys. Honestly.
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Mar 22, 2012 04:43
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Prolonged Priapism posted:What I really like about this is how it's drawn on paper with a child's drawing and some random equation on it. A perfect quick summary of the Culture. Coriolis posted:edit: Yeah, there isn't much artwork based on the Culture universe. The only neat thing I've ever found is this picture of Vavatch, which I'm currently using as my desktop: I'm using this Halo screenshot as my wallpaper, it's a nice interpretation of what an orbital might look like from ground level.
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Mar 22, 2012 12:42
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For what it's worth i remember a drone thinking something was "As impossible as traveling through time." it one of the books, either Matter or Use of Weapons i think. Edit: I also wish there was more culture art. I have trouble picturing what the aliens look like sometimes. I had to find a picture of an affronter on google. And what are the Oct supposed to look like? I'm reading through Matter and can't find where they are described. Also a question about storing your mindstate...if you are stored and die "you" still die right? You don't take a plasma round to the face and then wake up in a new body it's just a stored copy of you? My friend said that took the danger out of the books for the backed up people but for me it doesn't at all. It's almost creepier than death, you still go to oblivion but now there's another you with your memories running around alive, gah! Fragmented fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Mar 22, 2012 |
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Mar 22, 2012 15:24
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Fragmented posted:And what are the Oct supposed to look like? I'm reading through Matter and can't find where they are described. A bit like this;  Fragmented posted:Also a question about storing your mindstate...if you are stored and die "you" still die right? You don't take a plasma round to the face and then wake up in a new body it's just a stored copy of you? My friend said that took the danger out of the books for the backed up people but for me it doesn't at all. It's almost creepier than death, you still go to oblivion but now there's another you with your memories running around alive, gah! Yes, that comes up a few times when Culture citizens are about to die. They're all "Well I'll live on, but the me here and now with these experiences is going to die". However, if you've got a neural lace/soulkeeper device it stores your mindstate as/just before you're dying, which is a bit more of a Grey Area. Gravitas Shortfall fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Mar 22, 2012 |
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Mar 22, 2012 18:11
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