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I've read most of Bank's scifi, but only Complicity as far as fiction goes. I loved Complicity but that was probably because of simcity jokes and 90's era laptops. Obits are pointing towards The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road. Are these the best to start with, for his non-scifi works ?
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Jun 10, 2013 13:34
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There is death here. [sigh]
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Jun 10, 2013 14:27
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homercles posted:Obits are pointing towards The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road. Are these the best to start with, for his non-scifi works ? I think the Crow Road is probably his most accessible; it’s essentially a mystery with an approachable set of characters. Fans of his sci-fi stuff might like to start with The Bridge as it straddles a few genres. I wouldn’t recommend A Song of Stone to start with, and thought Steep Approach was a bit dull. By the way people interested in Bank’s fiction would do well to read Lanark by Alasdair Gray. It was a book that inspired a number of Scottish authors, and contains a large number of themes and settings that Banks later picked up and developed further. The quality of it fluctuates but if you want to understand the roots of Banks fiction in Scotland’s history and where he picked up inspiration for some of his wackier settings I would really recommend it. Edit: Sorry if this has been mentioned beforwe BTW, haven't read this thread in a long time.
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Jun 10, 2013 14:55
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homercles posted:I've read most of Bank's scifi, but only Complicity as far as fiction goes. I loved Complicity but that was probably because of simcity jokes and 90's era laptops. The crow road is probably my favourite of the non-scifi books and basically starts a kind-of trilogy series with steep approach and stonemouth. It reads pretty differently to a lot of the others and feels younger, but it's a really great story and is very well told.
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Jun 10, 2013 14:59
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FelchTragedy posted:International culture ship name day. I have mine, what's yours? GSV Infrequent Flier. ROU Repurposed Scrapmetal. GCU I Didn't Touch It! Sad news. I had just finished reading The Hydrogen Sonata, and enjoyed every moment. RIP Iain.
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Jun 10, 2013 15:42
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GCU Funny, It Worked Last Time...
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Jun 10, 2013 16:27
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ROU Turn It Off Then On Again
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Jun 10, 2013 16:39
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(d)ROU My Dad Could Beat Up Your Dad
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Jun 10, 2013 16:58
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GSV Space for Rent
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Jun 10, 2013 17:25
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Finally finished hydrogen sonata, read it all on my phone's kindle app. Disappointing ending. Most looked forward to epilogue snuck out the window. No comeuppance no resolution no nothing. I can't tell if I'm dissatisfied with the ending or sad about the author's passing.
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Jun 10, 2013 18:54
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I felt it was fitting considering the very nature of it's subject matter. While I've still got many questions about the universe, and that's fine, I do feel that the Hydrogen Sonata gave resolutions on the biggest of those. The rest is all up to my imagination.
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Jun 10, 2013 19:17
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I always had a soft spot for (d)ROU Frank Exchange of Views.
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Jun 10, 2013 20:56
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Entropic posted:I always had a soft spot for (d)ROU Frank Exchange of Views. Easily, easily my favourite Culture ship name, and in general one of my favourite euphemisms as well. I'd actually heard that ship name before I read anything by Iain M. Banks, and it was one of the reasons I gave him a go.
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Jun 10, 2013 21:19
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Oh also the middle of hydrogen sonata foreshadowed that the secret was going to be huge and have huge implications. There was that story in the middle about how real is too real for simulations? I thought the big secret is "oh by the way you're all being simmed. We wanted to know for when we sublime if it's a good idea. Sorry. We'll uhhh we'll just pull the plug now" and all the minds hopping around throughout the book find out they're being simmed too. But no it was exactly the same secret hypothesized in the first quarter of the book. There was no further knowledge or secret. It was exactly that. And they decided to do nothing with it. I was expecting ~literally anything~ further and when "nope, it was exactly as we thought" was the answer it felt like a huge loving waste of time.
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Jun 10, 2013 23:19
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I don't find the anticlimax to be a problem. It's a novel about the relationship between religion and politics, mostly interested in demonstrating that religion is ultimately meaningless but its value to individual people is more important than proving that, and that politics often uses religion as a cover for utterly selfish bullshit. The rest is Vyr Cossont's personal journey, acknowledging that her culture is built on a lie/joke and letting it go -- also achieving what they couldn't by becoming part of the Culture. Also there's no way to prove it isn't all a simulation. 
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Jun 10, 2013 23:50
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Highly gutted  Really want my daughter to read his work but she isnt quite old enough I reckon. Did show her the wiki on ship names today and she laughed her arse off!I read something basically all the time and I can say without a word of a lie that Banks was my favourite ever novelist. Im upset Sorry for all the dumb emotes e for ship name: quote:Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath done as requested below Seaside Loafer fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 00:10
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Krinkle posted:Oh also the middle of hydrogen sonata foreshadowed that the secret was going to be huge and have huge implications. There was that story in the middle about how real is too real for simulations? I thought the big secret is "oh by the way you're all being simmed. We wanted to know for when we sublime if it's a good idea. Sorry. We'll uhhh we'll just pull the plug now" and all the minds hopping around throughout the book find out they're being simmed too. But no it was exactly the same secret hypothesized in the first quarter of the book. There was no further knowledge or secret. It was exactly that. And they decided to do nothing with it. I was expecting ~literally anything~ further and when "nope, it was exactly as we thought" was the answer it felt like a huge loving waste of time. I felt the same way as you, but eventually I reconciled myself to the book by basically coming to this realisation - it was all a Big Shaggy Dog Story. That's the whole point - there isn't some grand amazing meaning behind everything, it just is. Virtually every character in the book is convinced that something cosmically massive and conspiratorial is going on, but it all ends up just being silly petty nonsense. It was absolutely a huge loving waste of time, but there are worse ways to spend your time than following the story up until that point.
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Jun 11, 2013 00:28
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Also there's no way to prove it isn't all a simulation. Exactly, in fact, it's pretty much explicitly said in that whole Simming Problem segue that even all the parts that would prove that it wasn't a sim, could and probably would be build in as an integral part of the simmed reality. If anything, it only reinforced the idea that true reality (sublimation) is so much more incomprehensible than we can even imagine, at the same time reinforcing the idea that baseline reality (as we know it) has to have a certain level of mundanity, while it also emphasises the futility of trying to answer such questions. As the Zooölogist's answers (if I recall correctly, the one Mind coming back) pretty clearly demonstrated, the answers we're capable of comprehending are lacking and unsatisfying yet indicative of so much more. I read the Hydrogen Sonata the same way. Aside from the obvious religion/Vyr Cossont angles, the intrigue and all that, there's a futility in it all that none of us would understand unless we were to take the next step and sublime. Maybe that's just me reading too much into it, though. I'd like to think Banks didn't know the answer either when he wrote it, but that he does now. Sci-fi started for me with vague ideas of space travel coming from Star Trek/Wars, then I read and saw some stories that dealt with the inexplicabilities of time(travel) and stuff, the wider universe and the such. I read Abbott Abbott's Flatland which helped me to put it all in a bit of perspective (heh) and Banks tied it all together, leaving me wanting more. Barry Foster posted:I felt the same way as you, but eventually I reconciled myself to the book by basically coming to this realisation - it was all a Big Shaggy Dog Story. That's the whole point - there isn't some grand amazing meaning behind everything, it just is. Virtually every character in the book is convinced that something cosmically massive and conspiratorial is going on, but it all ends up just being silly petty nonsense. It was absolutely a huge loving waste of time, but there are worse ways to spend your time than following the story up until that point. Yeah, that too. That's pretty much the old guy's perspective on life, isn't it? Taeke fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 00:30
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Seaside Loafer posted:Highly gutted Might want to spoiler that, because it's a pretty fun reveal in the book.
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Jun 11, 2013 00:31
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Barry Foster posted:I felt the same way as you, but eventually I reconciled myself to the book by basically coming to this realisation - it was all a Big Shaggy Dog Story. That's the whole point - there isn't some grand amazing meaning behind everything, it just is. Virtually every character in the book is convinced that something cosmically massive and conspiratorial is going on, but it all ends up just being silly petty nonsense. It was absolutely a huge loving waste of time, but there are worse ways to spend your time than following the story up until that point. Even more than that -- the failure to make good on the hints that it's all a simulation parallels the Minds' decision to not tell anybody that the Gzilt religion is all a lie. The book would be compromising its own themes if it gave us some grand revelatory answer, because it's about how grand revelatory answers would do more harm than good and aren't really that important anyways. IIRC it practically spells this out around the time that Cossont is let in on the secret and the Mistake Not... asks her if it changes anything.
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Jun 11, 2013 00:58
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Even more than that -- the failure to make good on the hints that it's all a simulation parallels the Minds' decision to not tell anybody that the Gzilt religion is all a lie. The book would be compromising its own themes if it gave us some grand revelatory answer, because it's about how grand revelatory answers would do more harm than good and aren't really that important anyways. IIRC it practically spells this out around the time that Cossont is let in on the secret and the Mistake Not... asks her if it changes anything. That's absolutely brilliant, and I fully admit I missed it the first time through. I definitely think a re-read is in order. I don't think it'll ever be my favourite Culture novel, but I have to say The Hydrogen Sonata is, in hindsight, a very fitting conclusion to the series.
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Jun 11, 2013 01:20
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ROU Bit of Truculence GSV Guns and Butter GSV If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now
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Jun 11, 2013 03:00
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Of Course I Still Love You and Anticipation Of A New Lovers Arrival, The are probably my two favorite ship names.
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Jun 11, 2013 03:27
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Mistake Not... Owned.
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Jun 11, 2013 03:57
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Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly is both a great Ship name and a great description of the entire Culture. but you can't really go past Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall
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Jun 11, 2013 07:19
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In terms of names, I quite like the Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon as a Contact unit. (Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon is one of the things blamed for UFOs). Also Just the Washing Instruction Chip in Life's Rich Tapestry. Also, a couple of my favourite ships. (And a Gravitas thrown in for good measure) MikeJF fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 09:11
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Entropic posted:I always had a soft spot for (d)ROU Frank Exchange of Views. One of my favorites along with Anticipation Of A New Lovers Arrival. I did like the GCU Nervous Energy from the Idrian War though. I also liked the temporarily named GSV Eschatologist that was tasked with destroying the Orbital Vavatch to prevent it falling into Idrian hands. ed balls balls man fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Jun 12, 2013 |
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Jun 12, 2013 17:26
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An hour long interview with Iain (recorded after his diagnosis) was broadcast on BBC Scotland last night. I missed it, but it should be available soon on the iPlayer: Iain Banks: Raw Spirit. EDIT: It's up. Available to watch until Wednesday 19th June. The dude was brilliant. Tenterhooks fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jun 13, 2013 |
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Jun 13, 2013 08:49
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Tenterhooks posted:An hour long interview with Iain (recorded after his diagnosis) was broadcast on BBC Scotland last night. I missed it, but it should be available soon on the iPlayer: Iain Banks: Raw Spirit. It's UK only.
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Jun 13, 2013 17:54
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Ataru13 posted:It's UK only. TunnelBear
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Jun 14, 2013 00:21
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Tenterhooks posted:An hour long interview with Iain (recorded after his diagnosis) was broadcast on BBC Scotland last night. I missed it, but it should be available soon on the iPlayer: Iain Banks: Raw Spirit. WeAreTheRomans posted:TunnelBear Thanks for this.
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Jun 14, 2013 03:45
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"The final interview" in the Guardian. It's pretty good, made me rather sad though.
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Jun 15, 2013 17:19
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big scary monsters posted:"The final interview" in the Guardian. It's pretty good, made me rather sad though. At that convention I was at when having a chat about Dr. Who I talked to him about the rules of the scripts and I used the term "Put the monster back in the box as it's a comforter for children." When someone came up to the table and asked him if he would write a Dr. Who he did a small sigh, like it was a question he had been asked many a time before. His favourite scifi show was Farscape by the way. He also agreed with my opinion about Player of Games being the best starter book for the culture when he repeated it on stage at a talk (I can't remember, it might of been his M. books). He did make a few notes on references I gave him on his phone I'm touched that he said these things.
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Jun 16, 2013 02:34
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Quick heads up - Planet Rock are playing a one hour show, recorded in 2010, where Iain picks and talks about his favourite songs and influences. It's starting right now.
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Jun 16, 2013 19:04
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big scary monsters posted:"The final interview" in the Guardian. It's pretty good, made me rather sad though. Thanks for posting this. His death is hitting me pretty hard. My dad died some years back at 62 and had a very similar attitude to Banks. Witty, had counter-cultural beliefs, and was just a funny old dude. I hope i can have half of the attitude banks has in that article if i have to face my own death like that. He even wanted to give us one more Culture novel before he went out if he had time
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Jun 20, 2013 02:08
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Final interview for camera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vrypvdqWI
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Jun 20, 2013 02:27
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Just finished Inversions, and with that, the Culture novels (although I still have the short stories in State of the Art to go). Overall, I am pretty ambivalent about Inversions. I think my experience of the book was highly damaged by expecting it to be a Culture novel, which it basically isn't. It also appeared to be infected with a Matter-esque narrative: Spend the whole book meandering about with scene setting, cram all the action into the last tenth of the book. Vossil's climax was fun but not particularly narratively or thematically satisfying; DeWar's climax was better but not by much. Neither of them really appeared to have much of a 'point'. Did I miss something?
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Jun 21, 2013 01:30
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I have been reading Raw Spirit and I'm really enjoying it. Though now all I want to do is drive around Scotland and buy loads of alcohol. The pronunciation guide at the back is really helpful, because now in addition to "Islay" and "Oban" and "Laphroaig", I now know the correct way to say "football" (i.e., "Fitba").
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Jun 21, 2013 05:31
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Those On My Left posted:Just finished Inversions, and with that, the Culture novels (although I still have the short stories in State of the Art to go). Overall, I am pretty ambivalent about Inversions. I think my experience of the book was highly damaged by expecting it to be a Culture novel, which it basically isn't. It also appeared to be infected with a Matter-esque narrative: Spend the whole book meandering about with scene setting, cram all the action into the last tenth of the book. Edit: to elaborate, my understanding is that the planet the story is set in its presumably an uncontacted world which the Culture' s Contact section is a about to, um, contact. Vosill and DeWar are Contact/SC agents sent to research and prepare the groundwork before introducing them to the greater galactic society, but disagree on the best method of doing so. Their differing viewpoints are set out in DeWar's stories about Lavishia. They've chosen to support and protect (and subtly influence) two different but both progressive rulers on the planet in order to change things for the better and prepare the society for Contacting. Possibly Vosill has already done something similar in the mysterious and decidedly more progressive country she pretends to be from. At the end of the book they're both about to move on to do their work elsewhere. big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jun 22, 2013 |
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Jun 22, 2013 00:35
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Picked up a copy of The Quarry yesterday. It's like someone's taken the UK Megathread from D&D and distilled it into novel form. And it's a very sad book. A lot of it seems to be about Banks trying to come to terms with his impending death and- I haven't finished it yet, but I looked ahead a little- failing. Badly.
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Jun 22, 2013 16:42
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