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Max posted:I agree. Honestly though, I was more interested in the Mind emails and counter-maneuvers against each other than any of the drama surrounding the human characters in that book. I always thought that was kind of the point, this incredibly tiny somewhat boring little Culture human drama playing out as these quasi-gods act on a huge, unknowable, macro scale, and a Mind using its leverage as a key player in that conflict just to try to help a single human psychologically heal. It was a nice reminder that there are Minds who are incredibly good (or who at least care about humans above all) after all the other Mind shenanigans.
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May 12, 2016 18:42
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Strawman posted:SC Minds are what interventionists in liberal democracies pretend to be. according to them.
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May 12, 2016 21:38
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Combed Thunderclap posted:a Mind using its leverage as a key player in that conflict just to try to help a single human psychologically heal. It was a nice reminder that there are Minds who are incredibly good (or who at least care about humans above all) after all the other Mind shenanigans. I dunno man, I'm not sure Sleeper Service did anything admirable, it basically enabled a human to throw a decades long tantrum after assaulting a pregnant woman and killing her fetus, then risked annihilation of the meta civilization just to make its favorite pet feel better. I thought the whole point was that Sleeper Service was exactly as eccentric as it was ostensibly pretending to be.
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May 12, 2016 22:08
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That's also a totally valid perspective.
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May 12, 2016 22:18
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andrew smash posted:I dunno man, I'm not sure Sleeper Service did anything admirable, it basically enabled a human to throw a decades long tantrum after assaulting a pregnant woman and killing her fetus, then risked annihilation of the meta civilization just to make its favorite pet feel better. I thought the whole point was that Sleeper Service was exactly as eccentric as it was ostensibly pretending to be. those two competing and equally correct views are what make the book real loving good imo.
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Jun 11, 2016 19:31
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I just finished Surface Detail and I think Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints is now my favourite Mind.
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Jun 12, 2016 00:12
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theyre a good one
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Jun 12, 2016 08:24
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Doesn't Falling Outside teach Lededje that the power to murder her tormentor was inside her all along? Like a momma cat making her kitten into a mouser? 
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Jun 12, 2016 08:29
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Otisburg posted:Doesn't Falling Outside teach Lededje that the power to murder her tormentor was inside her all along? Like a momma cat making her kitten into a mouser? Banks' profound hardon for torturing evil (seriously they're reeeeally evil, don't worry it's ok) people is his least attractive aspect as a writer IMO.
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Jun 12, 2016 11:23
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sebmojo posted:Banks' profound hardon for torturing evil (seriously they're reeeeally evil, don't worry it's ok) people is his least attractive aspect as a writer IMO. It's one of his MOST attractive to me. "Just because I'm progressive and liberal doesn't mean I have a problem with loving you up if your poo poo is wrong, and no I don't care if you defend it as subjective." is delightful.
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Jun 12, 2016 11:46
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Otisburg posted:Doesn't Falling Outside teach Lededje that the power to murder her tormentor was inside her all along? Like a momma cat making her kitten into a mouser? No, it uses her as an a assassin delivery system because Veppers Done hosed With The Culture. Enabling Lededje's revenge quest is cover and plausable deniability for SC investigation/involvement, IMO
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Jun 12, 2016 12:29
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Shockeh posted:It's one of his MOST attractive to me. "Just because I'm progressive and liberal doesn't mean I have a problem with loving you up if your poo poo is wrong, and no I don't care if you defend it as subjective." is delightful. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.
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Jun 12, 2016 13:23
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Groovelord Neato posted:He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. Said a borderline Nazi...
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Jun 12, 2016 13:25
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i don't actually disagree with shockeh totally it's why i've always thought it was stupid that the dachau reprisals were considered an allied war crime.
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Jun 12, 2016 14:29
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Don't Mistake My Niceness for Weakness/Don't gently caress With The Culture has always been a theme of the books, which makes sense given its greater grounding in international liberalism. The thing that keeps the peace isn't just being nice whenever possible, but bumping back against an attempt to harm. You still extend an olive branch after the fact to avoid a vicious cycle, but turning the other cheek under all circumstances is something for pacificists/the Peace Faction, and rightfully so. The tension and difficulties inherent in ensuring that any negative response is appropriately proportionate to the damage incurred (and still doesn't soil yourself ethically) is the same in real life, and that's another element I appreciate about the series. It's still a good point to make given how liberalism/touchy-feely stuff tends to get dismissed as inherently feeble. EDIT: Individual events like the Dachau liberation reprisals operate on the individual level rather than the societal/national level, and I don't think you should violate the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law unless there's no other option. Combed Thunderclap fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 15:29
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they deserved it.
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Jun 12, 2016 16:56
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Just so I don't get tarred with the same brush, I don't have enough awareness or knowledge of the topic to have an opinion on the historic event in question, I was just citing an opinion on Banks in general.  I'm just a big fan of the Don't Mistake My Niceness for Weakness/Don't gently caress With The Culture approach in general.
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Jun 12, 2016 17:01
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Shockeh posted:Said a borderline Nazi... Nope. Read Kaufmann.
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Jun 12, 2016 17:12
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Shockeh posted:Just so I don't get tarred with the same brush, I don't have enough awareness or knowledge of the topic to have an opinion on the historic event in question, I was just citing an opinion on Banks in general. after the liberation of dachau, a dozen or dozens of ss men were summarily executed by the americans liberators in a probable fit of rage after they realized what happened there. supposedly they also gave some handguns to the liberated jews and let them execute some of the guards (or beat them to death with shovels).
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Jun 12, 2016 18:21
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Groovelord Neato posted:after the liberation of dachau, a dozen or dozens of ss men were summarily executed by the americans liberators in a probable fit of rage after they realized what happened there. supposedly they also gave some handguns to the liberated jews and let them execute some of the guards (or beat them to death with shovels). Good, hope they got away with a slap on the wrist.
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Jun 12, 2016 20:34
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Yeah allow me to not feel bad for the SS at Dachau.
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Jun 12, 2016 20:45
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The better WWII analogy to describe Culture policy is more like the US's immediate response to events like Pearl Harbor (or, more recently, 9/11). The question of how to treat horrible fucks who are also prisoners of war are better understood as transitional justice issues than deterrence issues in my opinion.
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Jun 12, 2016 21:04
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Groovelord Neato posted:He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. --Some dude who really wanted to justify not fighting monsters.
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Jun 12, 2016 21:11
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Groovelord Neato posted:they deserved it. GCU They Deserved It
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Jun 12, 2016 22:01
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The GCU He Should Have Armed Himself First
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Jun 12, 2016 22:11
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MeLKoR posted:Good, hope they got away with a slap on the wrist. they did. leo's character in shutter island is one of the guys who shot up the ss. xian posted:Yeah allow me to not feel bad for the SS at Dachau. right. but it is something people bring as an "allied war crime" when that type of thing is discussed and i can't really bring myself to feel that way.
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Jun 12, 2016 22:24
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Nor can I. Nor would I consider that a 'good faith' argument if someone brought it up.
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Jun 12, 2016 23:41
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Shockeh posted:It's one of his MOST attractive to me. "Just because I'm progressive and liberal doesn't mean I have a problem with loving you up if your poo poo is wrong, and no I don't care if you defend it as subjective." is delightful. Yeah, but torture. Cf Complicity, where that is basically the entire plot so it's not like he was unaware of the contradiction.
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Jun 13, 2016 00:32
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I blogged about the shot copy of Dianetics. Anyone know what happened to it?
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Jul 28, 2016 12:47
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I've had a look at the past few pages and Look to Windward seems to be held in high regard but it kind of fell flat for me (I've read Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Against a Dark Background, The Algebraist and currently reading through Hydrogen Sonata). I think the most disappointing aspect of the book for me was the inevitability of the ending. About a third through the book I already knew that somehow, the plot would be foiled and I wasn't dissapointed in that respect, and the extra detail that Huyler was also a spy made the entire thing even worse. Maybe I had entered the book with the wrong expectations, but having the ending be 'Oh and we knew it all along, and we had a spy in there too, and there wasn't any real danger anyway, and the plotters were all killed and and and...' seemed to make, at least to me, the entire book slightly pointless. I know that the point of it was to bind the experiences of Quilan with the ones of the Masaq' hubmind, and the shared suicide was a nice moment, but I assumed from the start that since the book seemed to start with how fallible the Culture was (since, apparently, the caused the Caste War in the first place), this would extend to the ending as well. I am interested in reading contrasting opinions though, since at least some people consider it their favourite Culture book (I really liked Excession, since it has shows how weird and quirky the community of minds can be, and humanizes them even while putting them far above the people they are in charge of). Tekopo fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Aug 1, 2016 |
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Aug 1, 2016 10:48
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I'm reading through Transition and it's throwing me through a loop.
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Aug 1, 2016 16:06
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Tekopo posted:I've had a look at the past few pages and Look to Windward seems to be held in high regard but it kind of fell flat for me (I've read Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Against a Dark Background, The Algebraist and currently reading through Hydrogen Sonata). I liked the ending a lot. The Culture may have the 'hard power' to stop the conspiracy effortlessly: but the Culture's also supposed to be capital-g Good, and Masaq did not feel like a good person/mind. Windward is about the ethical and personal costs of the use of power, and the ending says, even if you are mighty beyond words you will still face deep uncertainty and crushing regret over your actions. The e-dust assassin is pretty chilling for this reason. It is a terror weapon: it shows the Culture in its full vindictive cathartic-revenge-fantasy "don't gently caress with us" mode, and it's quite troubling. They've stooped to the use of fear at the end of a book very much about a cycle of fear and hate.
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Aug 1, 2016 17:07
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General Battuta posted:I liked the ending a lot. The Culture may have the 'hard power' to stop the conspiracy effortlessly: but the Culture's also supposed to be capital-g Good, and Masaq did not feel like a good person/mind. Windward is about the ethical and personal costs of the use of power, and the ending says, even if you are mighty beyond words you will still face deep uncertainty and crushing regret over your actions. I think in a vacuum and not having read any other Culture books, I think I would have liked this book, but I had already built up a view of the Culture before reading the book which lessened the impact of the ending. I didn't see the use of the e-dust assassin as the Culture 'stooping', but just the business as usual for Special Circumstances.The "don't gently caress with us" mode is a running theme not just in this book, but a lot of other ones, of horrible abuses of power for "noble" goals (Meatfucker in Excession comes to mind). The ending directly reinforces the fact that if you have power, you can make mistakes and there is no repercussions, and the e-dust assassin reinforces this further. To have the plot actually succeed would have shown that even the mighty culture was fallible, and would have been an interesting aside from the other Culture books, but the book provided the same theme that I have seen as constants throughout the series. And, expecting those theme, the ending of Look to Windward was just a confirmation of them, which made my reading of the book rote, uninteresting and unexciting because I had guessed at the themes half-way through (apart from the partly unexpected event of the dual suicide).
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Aug 1, 2016 17:42
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Tekopo posted:I never really felt that the Culture was capital-g Good, though, in none of the books that I've read so far. So the stunning revelation that the Culture is filled with revenge-seeking assholes didn't seem, at least to me, to be such a revelation. In the end, the book seemed to showcase to me that, as long as you have power, you can get away with stuff. And the Culture certainly could, as shown by the Caste War. It intruded with noble intentions, it hosed up, and there were no repercussions for the actions it did apart from having to say a trite 'sorry'. It's been a while since I re-read Look to Windward, but I think we only ever hear about the Caste War from the Chelgrian's understandably bitter side. We don't really know why or how the Minds responsible totally misread the situation and how they reacted to it. Did they get too cocky or was it something no one could've seen coming? E-Dust terror weapon definitely makes them seem more evil however. Don't know what to think about that. edit: To be clear, personally I would lean more towards pacifism being the Most Good, but I can see arguments against it. TURTLE SLUT fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 18:41
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JOHN SKELETON posted:What sort of repercussions would you have liked to see? For the Caste War fuckup specifically. Honest question. I don't think the Culture is capital G good, but in my mind it's pretty close if you assume that total pacifism and non-interference is not the Most Good. Is the Culture evil because at least once in their history, their well-intentioned interference totally blew up in their faces? Also, even if the culture isn't good, that does not necessarily mean that they are evil. They have mostly noble intentions, but they have an overriding sense that they are correct on all matters and it is this hubris that gets them into trouble. The caste war is not explained in any detail, and at the start of the book it very much feels like Chal propaganda. But once you enter Masaq', the culture citizens confirm the story, although no details are given. The story goes that SC bribed a bunch of people to get an equalitarian in power and then things went wrong, unexpectedly, once he was in power. As for repercussions, I don't believe that people on Masaq' should have died and it would have been just if it had happened, but it's unclear what exactly happened when the culture admitted guilt, why they did it or what reparations were made. In the end I have less of an issue with the morality of the Culture in the book as opposed to the lack of suspense that the plot suffered from. It never felt like the bomb plot was ever going to work, and the ending being what it was placed the final nail in the coffin for me. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 18:55
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Actually thinking about it in a new light, the main theme of the book is culpability. Who's culpable in the culture for the fuckup in the Caste War? Who is culpable in the twin nova battle? Masaq' orbital certainly felt partially culpable for both the battle and the death of his clone. The ones culpable for the bomb plot got their comeuppance, but the minds behind the caste war probably didn't. I think the book actually makes quite a lot of points regarding how culpable the culture is as a whole for the independent actions of the minds, and how surrendering your decision making power wholy into the hands of the minds can lead to these situations. I guess I'm apreaciating the book a little bit more, although I still have issues with its narrative structure.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:15
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I just finished Inversions, and I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't pick up on the fact that DeWar was from the Culture as well. I also would have liked to know more on a macro scale why their intervention mattered.
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Aug 21, 2016 18:00
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remigious posted:I just finished Inversions, and I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't pick up on the fact that DeWar was from the Culture as well. I also would have liked to know more on a macro scale why their intervention mattered. Like, the implications for people living anywhere else? I think improving the situation on that planet is reason enough for Contact/SC, as long as it doesn't conflict with achieving some larger goal. Edit: was a bigger picture implied? I don't remember that, but it's been a while.
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Aug 21, 2016 18:17
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I don't think a bigger picture was implied at all :/ I enjoyed the book quite a bit, I just wanted a bit more explanation I guess.
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Aug 21, 2016 19:05
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Does anyone know why Inversions and Feersum Endjinn are not available on Kindle in the US? I suspect I have a copy of the former lying around in paperback somewhere but I have no idea where it walked off to.
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Aug 22, 2016 04:01
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