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Khanstant posted:I've been reading it as Gur-gee hard g. Do they ever explain the naming nomenclature of people? I can accept that it's just how they are, all having long rear end names of many parts, but I suspect maybe the names indicate more information than just a designation for an individual? I don't think I've yet learned how The Culture reproduces, unless the Changer mentioned it dismissively at some point. In the epilogue to Consider Phlebas they talk about pretty human standard biological reproduction. Presumably that's with some pretty impressive assisting technology but it seemed like not a big deal.
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Dec 26, 2023 03:03
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Khanstant posted:I don't think I've yet learned how The Culture reproduces, unless the Changer mentioned it dismissively at some point.
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Dec 26, 2023 04:29
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Oh I'm definitely gonna read em all. I always knew I'd like em since the first time someone squawked "the culture" at me when wishing for a better future sci-fi civ that was basically them. The non-ship names are total gobbledegook and there was a moment in the beginning that was really setting off my "too many gibberish meaningless but presumably important nouns, names, and titles" quote:The Jinmoti of Bozlen Two kill the hereditary ritual assassins of the new Yearking’s immediate family by drowning them in the tears of the Continental Empathaur in its Sadness Season It ends up being a cute/tragic connection between two characters and is just that character's own fiction, which I can appreciate. Seeing someone in this fictional world making their fictional world is interesting but for a quite a while I kept thinking the Jinmoti, Bozlen Two, hereditary ritual assassins, the yearking, and the crying dinosaur were going to show up again. I think it pays off and to be fair, he does preface that sentence internally by saying it's pointless and he doesn't know why he's even thinking of it.
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Dec 26, 2023 08:24
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Khanstant posted:I've been reading it as Gur-gee hard g. Do they ever explain the naming nomenclature of people? I can accept that it's just how they are, all having long rear end names of many parts, but I suspect maybe the names indicate more information than just a designation for an individual? I don't think I've yet learned how The Culture reproduces, unless the Changer mentioned it dismissively at some point. It's their address. I think it might be a joke about 'form of address' and 'location of residence'?
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Dec 26, 2023 08:53
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Culture names often include maternal parent ("dam") and physical address, yeah. No idea if this changes when you move or if stays as your point of origin, but knowing the Culture it's probably dependent on personal choice and current fashion. Edit: Some searching suggests it's "place of origin" rather than address. Gravitas Shortfall fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Dec 26, 2023 |
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Dec 26, 2023 09:15
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quote:An example would be Diziet Sma, whose full name is Rasd-Coduresa Diziet Embless Sma da' Marenhide: I'd do my own name as another example but that'd doxx me. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Dec 26, 2023 |
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Dec 26, 2023 12:35
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I was always surprised that he went for "Sun-Earther" and not "Sol-Terrasa"
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Dec 26, 2023 13:05
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I was always surprised that he went for "Sun-Earther" and not "Sol-Terrasa" In a different interview he did! I liked it enough to use it.
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Dec 26, 2023 18:20
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Hot take: books about Utopia aren’t interesting, Iain knows this, so most references to Culture culture are lampooning it as meaningless in the context of the plot. (That’s why the books—especially the earlier ones—never really take place in the Culture, instead on its fringes and interactions with non-Culture). The long flowery names are part of this. You get the sense that there’s an immense and deep social universe in the Culture which is entirely uninterested in the goings on of Contact and especially Special Circumstances, and only the worst of the worst grognards care about its equivalent of the state department and CIA. Later in the series you do get more actual-Culture involvement, but early on it’s best to read it as disinterested, effete, and completely up its own rear end in a way we can’t engage with as readers.
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Dec 26, 2023 18:53
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It's really a clever way to approach a utopia without it being boring. Can't remember if Ive ever read a book with a protagonist that has me rooting against them in a sense, where the poo poo talking he does turn into unintended praise. I guess the Left Behind books towards the end I was rooting for the anti-christ's team but they were bad books with several main characters I did not like, but they weren't like Horza, the authors are just no bueno.
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Dec 26, 2023 19:10
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Weird, so far Player of Games hasn't had a chapter break. I'm about a third way through and it suddenly has one... And I think it's the author addressing me directly to explain which pronouns he will be using to discuss the triple sexed aliens incoming. Then it recaps the story briefly before starting the story again. Does this sort of thing happen often in these books or is it something special about Player of Games I'll find out eventually I guess don't answer me at all I'm just thoughtposting
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Dec 26, 2023 22:51
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Only through further azad of Azad will the azad of the Azad become clear. It’s also important that you gland something to put yourself in the same k-hole as Gurgeh.
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Dec 26, 2023 22:57
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Khanstant posted:Does this sort of thing happen often in these books or is it something special about Player of Games I'll find out eventually I guess don't answer me at all I'm just thoughtposting I think Excession does something similar, can't recall. Surface Detail has alternating narrative POVs but no chapter gimmick iirc. Matter does alternate POV but again, no real gimmick. Inversions has two alternate storylines that don't intersect but it is strongly implied that the protagonist of each know each other. Hydrogen Sonata is about as straight-shot as these things get. Haven't read Look to Windward yet.
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Dec 27, 2023 16:28
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Look to windward has two parallel timelines for the protagonist, one tracking his history and one tracking his present
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Dec 27, 2023 20:13
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It reminded me of Princess Bride interludes of Grandpa and kid commenting on things, or some other storybook narrator. I look forward to the other narrative structures. I also realized yesterday these books aren't a sequential series, I thought I was on book 2 for some reason but you just read em however. Re: Player of Games, dudes learning the ropes on the ships still and for a moment I was starting to get excited there was maybe some board game version of this game , but nah, between the absurd complexities, the little vegetable meat golems are the exactly sort of thing nobody seems to be able to make for board games these days, let alone ones you can sniff to ascertain unit stats or motivation. Prediction: Marwen-Skrel is totally showing up on Ea (sorry names wrong don't wanna Google to correct for fear of spoilers or lose my place to scroll) somehow, maybe fully disguised as a humanoid contestant and they gotta fight so he can overcome his poo poo experience with that jerkass. Though the way he was able to blackmail him was so good and sneaky and I legit wasn't expecting it. Bad boy orb geez breaking all the not-rules.
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Dec 28, 2023 02:19
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Yeah, the game of Azad is meant to represent the complexities, hierarchies, and ideals of their society. Sadly there won’t be any “real” versions of it we can play. This is the same problem Iain has when talking about ships/minds, he can’t go into any deep detail without being more clever than the thing he wants to describe. (Larry Niven always had the same problem writing anything with the character Brennan-Pak for the same reason, if anyone gets that reference). Anyway stay away from spoilers and keep going. Banks almost always has a good gut punch at the end of each story.
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Dec 28, 2023 02:27
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My headcanon is that Azad is a complex RTS, something like Starcraft 2. I haven't read it in a while but I remember thinking there were elements described by Banks that made me think of an RTS, so I always imagined it like high-skill SC2 in multiple dimensions, or TA/SupCom, or something like that.
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Dec 28, 2023 02:50
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Yeah for ease of familiarity I'm mostly imagining a set of ludicrously large and detailed RTS or Warhammer / DnD landscapes, but that can be terra formed and each hex potentially layered with things in each level, kind of picturing the price golems as solid star wars holochess pieces, with complex Civilization type politicking, with Risk or MtG commander type shenanigans. It's the unexplainable stuff aim just treating like I do real life board games with my ADHD rear end brain, where I kind of stop absorbing it under the assumption I'll pick it up as I go along and get sideswiped by poo poo I wasn't thinking about yet. I like the way he handles the too-advanced stuff without it just feeling like straight soft magic. It's like a reverse Lovecraft, none of the bigotry and hatred and willfully fearful, it's a positive optimistic approach to what is unknown or unknowable, a humbleness or acceptance of the limitations of a given body or entity and its potential relation to others.
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Dec 28, 2023 03:19
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Azad is a 1979 Breakout clone, this is canon.
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Dec 28, 2023 05:55
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Banks was obviously very familiar with Risk, since The Steep Approach to Garbadale is about a dynasty that's built its fortune on what is clearly meant to be a legally distinct version of the game. So there's a lot of that kind of grand-strategy DNA in Azad.
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Dec 28, 2023 08:42
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He was addicted to civ 1 back in the day
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Dec 28, 2023 08:47
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sebmojo posted:He was addicted to civ 1 back in the day That also makes a lot of sense. Fun fact; Civilisation (the computer game) is inspired by a board game of the same name, which is focused on the Mediterranean. Later, there was a board game based on the computer game, making it a board game based on a computer game based on a board game.
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Dec 28, 2023 08:58
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I have both! There's an even newer one based on Civ 6 that I don't have though.
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Dec 28, 2023 16:18
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Complicity has an even more direct Civ reference
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Dec 28, 2023 17:06
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I was less impressed with Damages. Maybe I'm just a prude but I'm just never going to want to play a game where I have to wager unfortunately people's lives just to play a horrible gambling game where people will gently caress with my head directly and literally.
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Dec 28, 2023 17:16
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Damage was a sort of high tech blood sport, it's not from the same root as Azad or the other Civ knockoffs
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Dec 28, 2023 18:13
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:While at the same time excising those traits by showing him where they ultimately lead, and thus making him into a better Culture citizen. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but doesnt the drone Chamlis also excise Gurgeh by launching him into a star in the epilogue?
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Dec 28, 2023 19:07
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Votskomit posted:Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but doesnt the drone Chamlis also excise Gurgeh by launching him into a star in the epilogue? You are definitely remembering wrong lol
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Dec 28, 2023 20:34
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Votskomit posted:Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but doesnt the drone Chamlis also excise Gurgeh by launching him into a star in the epilogue? Uh No. With the caveat that what you describe is a common funeral practice in the Culture, so.. ultimately I guess?
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Dec 28, 2023 20:50
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:While at the same time excising those traits by showing him where they ultimately lead, and thus making him into a better Culture citizen. I read the book as saying that Azad is an authoritarian empire which devotes all their energy to refining their power and authority to greater heights, but that the Culture is even more authoritarian (albeit through soft power and deceit) and even more likely to exert their will and influence on others than Azad can ever be. Remember that one year before this Banks had written the first Culture book told from the point of view of someone crushed by it, and in this book he’s refining the argument that the Culture is a deceitful and malicious entity. He moves somewhat away from this later. The reader is supposed to think that the title refers to Gurgeh until the epilogue, when it’s revealed that the Culture are the Player and Gurgeh is a bio-engineered game piece.
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Dec 28, 2023 20:57
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Authoritarian isn't the right word I think, because people can and do leave the Culture - whole ships even! But broadly I agree.
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Dec 28, 2023 21:56
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sebmojo posted:You are definitely remembering wrong lol I looked it up. It's the last page and I misunderstood the intention. Gurgeh was indeed killed and sent into the sun. But it was by choice, when I initially thought the drone was implying otherwise.
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Dec 28, 2023 22:06
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Authoritarian isn't the right word I think, because people can and do leave the Culture - whole ships even! Once you've come in proper contact with the Culture, you never are free of it, and it will work as a force to its own ends whether you know you are a part of it or not. As is said in Use of Weapons "You might call them soft and they'd probably agree with you, but they're soft in the way the ocean is soft." And the only societies we see that are truly diametrically opposed to anything that the Culture can't use all have straight-up fashy overtones-- the Idrians, the Affront, and Azad -- which are naturally worse but do have the lone benefit of being societies where you cannot possibly mistake your own advantages to anything other than your genetic luck and willingness to be a sadistic gently caress to other life.
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Dec 28, 2023 23:48
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Crow Road also has a wargame as window dressing, zi don't recall it playing into the story
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Dec 29, 2023 00:52
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:people can and do leave the Culture - whole ships even! That’s what they would have you believe. The Zetetic Elench is a SC psyop! 
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Dec 29, 2023 03:11
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Scope posted:Gurgeh stared at the space chess. He considered moving the space king over to the space rook, but then he didn't. Instead, he moved it to the right. He nodded. The robot flew over, and said something bitchy. Gurgeh chuckled, then sighed. "Robot," he said, "please fly away." The robot made a light from his head and then he flew away.  In the shitposting spirit of the first page of this thread, I want to point out I had an Iain M. Banks avatar on this forum for 20 years and none of you said a gat-danged word about it: 
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Dec 29, 2023 03:32
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Uh Yeah it's mentioned in the epilogue that if you're reading this then Gurgeh's been dead and funerally displaced into the sun for many years by now, but that's just a 'these events won't be published for a long time' thing.
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Dec 29, 2023 06:43
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Oh, the Cliff class superlifter is an Escarpment class GCU that's been filled with engines instead. How twee. (I got the drawings for Christmas) (Would it really have killed them to do a contrast pass on this though?)
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Dec 29, 2023 15:18
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 slower progress reading since I'm not trapped at the airport but we are finally on Azad and LMAO at the drone and ship having to cosplay as cube r2d2 and a static hissing c3po. I also had a revelation when Gurgeh said "fancy dress" when Flare-Imasho was fussing about its gimpsuit, that I'd basically been reading every character in American but they were probably intended to be more English and Scottish and switching to that instantly made some of the characters make more sense. Khanstant fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Dec 29, 2023 |
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Dec 29, 2023 18:45
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An effector is a deliberately vague omnipurpose remote sensor and and manipulator. It is a device that can have a precise effect at a distance. (Most effectively with EM fields, so the Culture is really good at remotely manipulating devices. Or even messing with brains.)
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Dec 29, 2023 |
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Dec 29, 2023 19:02
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