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Meatfucker Did Nothing Wrong
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 16:29 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:41 |
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I don't get why everone's all hating on Hydrogen Sonata. It's definitely more of just a fun space adventure instead of a thought-provoking look at the concept of utopia, but it's a very well written space adventure. Lots of interesting world building about Subliming, good action setpieces, likable protagonists, dude with 30 dicks, what's not to like. And it has a lot of Mind shenanigans like in Excession. Also re: people hating on Matter, I also found it disappointing on a first read but liked it a lot on a re-read. When you know the end is coming it works with the themes of the book.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 17:45 |
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Razakai posted:Meatfucker Did Nothing Wrong
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 17:49 |
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JOHN SKELETON posted:I don't get why everone's all hating on Hydrogen Sonata. It's definitely more of just a fun space adventure instead of a thought-provoking look at the concept of utopia, but it's a very well written space adventure. It’s Banks so the worldbuilding and setpieces are really good but the plot was a wet fart. At the start we learn that the guys are going to sublime, a bunch of stuff happens in the middle that doesn’t amount to much, and then at the end they sublime just as planned. The secret they discovered about the race that was going to sublime was not very interesting, my immediate reaction was “who cares” and then nobody in fact really cared about it. The b-plot with the races that would take over the sublimed guys’ stuff never really went anywhere. It wasn’t like awful but it was much less interesting to me than his other books.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 18:01 |
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I know I've read Hydrongen Sonata at least once but remember nothing about it, except it was about a big party or something?
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 18:06 |
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doverhog posted:I know I've read Hydrongen Sonata at least once but remember nothing about it, except it was about a big party or something? it's the one where the not-culture militarists are gonna sublime, and then blow up a sublimed mentor civ ship for ~mysterious~ reasons followed by 600 pages of a band nerd being boring while explosions happen around her
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 18:42 |
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RFC2324 posted:it's the white man's burden RFC2324 posted:i mean that is literally one of the major things used to justify colonialism are you some kind of reverse social justice warrior or what
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 18:53 |
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Waffle House posted:are you some kind of reverse social justice warrior or what What? I just pointed out the obvious parallel there. Does it really make you that mad that The Culture is not actually a perfect society, and does some pretty hosed up poo poo?
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 18:58 |
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The idea about messing with less advanced civilizations, for humanitarian purposes, has been explored by scifi since at least the 50s if not earlier. It's not as simple as just landing your loving spaceship and killing an evil king.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 19:03 |
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Colonel Cancer posted:The idea about messing with less advanced civilizations, for humanitarian purposes, has been explored by scifi since at least the 50s if not earlier. and the quandary of if its moral to step in and fix what you see as wrong with the indigenous culture vs letting them continue on without interference is the major point of exploration. The Culture tends to meddle wholesale, because they feel that those lesser civilizations just need a good dose of what is best for them. that is the very definition of the white mans burden, and is something that our current society is struggling with the after effects of. its definitely worth exploring
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 19:12 |
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Not saying it isn't, but agressively meddling with other civilizations because of their politics doesn't really work out IRL and probably wouldn't in the gay space robot future, unless you are willing to turn it into some kind of a brain-washing dystopia.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 19:45 |
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He explores the "does this or does this not work, are we good or not" as like, the major theme in every single one of these books. It's like the major conflict on which every plot centers. He doesn't create a perfect space society sorry if that disappoints everyone
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 19:48 |
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Colonel Cancer posted:Not saying it isn't, but agressively meddling with other civilizations because of their politics doesn't really work out IRL and probably wouldn't in the gay space robot future, unless you are willing to turn it into some kind of a brain-washing dystopia. How do you feel about giving Africa developmental aid?
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 19:49 |
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doverhog posted:How do you feel about giving Africa developmental aid? Ineffective bandaid placating continuing shameless resource exploitation by the west?
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 19:58 |
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doverhog posted:How do you feel about giving Africa developmental aid? Are we imposing our culture on them to give them aid?
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 20:01 |
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RFC2324 posted:What? I just pointed out the obvious parallel there. Does it really make you that mad that The Culture is not actually a perfect society, and does some pretty hosed up poo poo? I wish I had that picture of the dude cumming over a 40k space marine while the dotted line of, “the joke” goes soaring over his head
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 20:01 |
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Ok, now are you proposing we stop the aid? You don't have to answer, the point is, it's a complicated question, and Banks does not actually say in his books that the Culture is right. The authoritarial voice is asking a question, not telling the reader what the ultimate truth is.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 20:02 |
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doverhog posted:Ok, now are you proposing we stop the aid? You don't have to answer, the point is, it's a complicated question, and Banks does not actually say in his books that the Culture is right. The authoritarial voice is asking a question, not telling the reader what the ultimate truth is. As far as the aid, we need to be very careful how we provide it. Look what happens when we impose democracy on a developing nation. It almost never works because the people don't really know what to look for in a leader and end up electing a dictator. But when a nation finds it on their own, it usually holds because part of developing a democracy is learning what to look for where you cast your vote. then, apparently forgetting that lesson and voting for trump/brexit/other fash poo poo as far as the books, that exploration is one of the things that make them enjoyable. its a utopia, but its a flawed utopia
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 20:14 |
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RFC2324 posted:As far as the aid, we need to be very careful how we provide it. Look what happens when we impose democracy on a developing nation. It almost never works because the people don't really know what to look for in a leader and end up electing a dictator. But when a nation finds it on their own, it usually holds because part of developing a democracy is learning what to look for where you cast your vote. Your brain seems completely eaten by post-2016 meme politics and I don’t think you’d enjoy these books very much
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 20:36 |
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The problem fundamentally is that European colonialists weren't very much like the Culture at all and white man's burden was always some bullshit to sell the idea of enslavement to the masses while extracting resources and profits.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 21:22 |
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Annalee Newitz 6/10/13 2:03pm https://io9.gizmodo.com/11-rules-of-good-writing-that-iain-m-banks-left-as-his-512191076 quote:Over the weekend, author Iain M. Banks died of cancer — just two months after announcing that he had less than a year to live. He left behind some of the greatest works of science fiction ever written. Here are eleven Banksian rules of good SF writing, that we would do well to remember long into the future.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 21:26 |
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quote:Those authoritarians should be killed. There is no happy rehab. We won't make them see the error of their ways. We will loving assassinate them so fast that they won't even realize that a Terror Class Ship entered and left their local volume of space. Seriously. Kill those bastards. Banks wasn't afraid to moralize on behalf of great justice. Some things are not ambiguous. Goddamn right
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 22:22 |
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i heard this guy got so mad at Israel once he refused to let anymore of his books be translated for them that'll show 'em.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 22:45 |
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Waffle House posted:Annalee Newitz I feel she's read the books but failed to understand almost all of the messages, morals and statements that the author made. Impressively so.
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 22:50 |
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spog posted:I feel she's read the books but failed to understand almost all of the messages, morals and statements that the author made. Impressively so. You have piqued my curiosity. Books are as interpretable as there are people on earth; what do you take away from Iain Banks work?
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# ? Jul 22, 2018 22:55 |
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doverhog posted:Ok, now are you proposing we stop the aid? You don't have to answer, the point is, it's a complicated question, and Banks does not actually say in his books that the Culture is right. The authoritarial voice is asking a question, not telling the reader what the ultimate truth is. Yes, that's the core theme of every Culture book and characterising it as white man's burden is accurate if provocative lol Moridin920 posted:The problem fundamentally is that European colonialists weren't very much like the Culture at all and white man's burden was always some bullshit to sell the idea of enslavement to the masses while extracting resources and profits. They're as beneficent as it's possible to be, while still presuming they know best. The Culture doesn't need physical resources and profits any more, so it's extracting the emotional resource/profit of knowing they are the good guys. Most of the time it works out really well for them and the cultures concerned, occasionally it doesn't and 4.5 billion people get killed (oops lol) sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jul 23, 2018 |
# ? Jul 23, 2018 00:20 |
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applewhite look what your thread did
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# ? Jul 23, 2018 00:28 |
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Politically, Banks's stuff has always seemed like standard progressive or whatever fare with a little bit of moral ambiguity for spice thrown in. It doesn't seem super-complex about morality or politics.
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# ? Jul 23, 2018 00:37 |
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im really enjoying excession
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# ? Jul 23, 2018 13:35 |
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bitmap posted:im really enjoying excession
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 01:41 |
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Colonel Cancer posted:The idea about messing with less advanced civilizations, for humanitarian purposes, has been explored by scifi since at least the 50s if not earlier. The Orson Scott Card short story Kingsmeat would beg to disagree.
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 02:00 |
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RE: The prime Directive It's dumb and I favor the Culture's interventionist approach.
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 02:05 |
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Waffle House posted:You have piqued my curiosity. Books are as interpretable as there are people on earth; what do you take away from Iain Banks work? I could go through that article and point out the many factual mistakes and inocrrect conclusions, but I am afraid that it would look extremely if I did.
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 08:22 |
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spog posted:I could go through that article and point out the many factual mistakes and inocrrect conclusions, but I am afraid that it would look extremely if I did. I'd like to read that though. I wish you'd do it.
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 09:37 |
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The Dennis System posted:Politically, Banks's stuff has always seemed like standard progressive or whatever fare with a little bit of moral ambiguity for spice thrown in. It doesn't seem super-complex about morality or politics. Like Diziet Sma is one of the good ones, a special agent trying to steer civilizations into democracy and social equality. But then there's also that scene where her drone gores the gently caress out of some primitives when all it had to do was to stop them, and Sma let's it off the hook "this time". It's ok to employ sociopaths that will go total overkill once in a while, since they're otherwise useful weapons? Or, hell, Zakalwe leading a war on behalf of the Culture on the assumption that he'll be able to make it somehow a very nice and relaxed war. There's definitely unambiguous evil, like pointed out by that quote from Newitz, but a lot of the time the actions of the protagonists are simply shown, and the morality is left for the reader to determine. I feel like I'm coming across like a Banks fanboy since I keep defending the books, so here's some criticism: the overall structure of some books is a bit meandering, and there's not enough really likable protagonists for example in Excession (Byr can gently caress right off). I also thought Against a Dark Background was just a total mess.
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 12:52 |
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I always thought Banks was a liberal who was trying to simultaneously say that intervening in other countries works and that the post work utopia would be boring anyway but that's like, my opinion man
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 15:29 |
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Hello everyone since this is now the Scifi thread how does the Uplift Saga end? I started reading Brightness Reef but it looks sorta lovely and I dont think Im gonna get through this second trilogy. I just want to know where the drat Streaker is
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 15:56 |
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JOHN SKELETON posted:I also thought Against a Dark Background was just a total mess. Same, it felt like he threw a bunch of stuff he couldn’t make fit into any of his other books and hoped for the best. All his books have problems to varying degrees, but I don’t love them because they’re perfect works of art, but because he always tried hard to express himself to the reader. I forgive his missteps because I like the way his mind worked.
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 16:14 |
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last night I was able to pick a random sci fi book off the ol’ shelf and remember that wow, words like, “negress”, no matter how apt a descriptor, have really fallen out of favor in this strange wild world of 2018 lmao PS: It is my favorite book but I think AADB showcases Banks’ tendency to be generously michael bay with plot Waffle House fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 24, 2018 |
# ? Jul 24, 2018 16:20 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:41 |
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I suddenly wonder how many times I’ve read the female pubic triangle described as, “a patch/brace/shock of [$ProtagonessHaircolor] hair.” I feel like the word, “alabaster” comes up a lot when describing lady skin tones in space, too.
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# ? Jul 24, 2018 16:42 |