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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > No Gravitas Allowed -- The Iain [M.] Banks thread
 
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Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
Even though it's the least complex of the Culture novels, and is also in some ways a bit scrappy compared to the later books, Consider Phlebas is my favourite of them simply for its unashamed glee in coming up with one mindblowing Big loving Artefact after another - and then blowing the poo poo out of them in genuinely thrilling action sequences. There may not be the intricacy of The Player Of Games or the sheer head-loving :aaa: / :gonk: of Use Of Weapons, but Banks' blatant delight at getting to devise all this awesome stuff is irresistable.

* # ¿ Feb 6, 2009 23:40
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# ¿ May 3, 2024 03:13
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Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!

The Bramble posted:

Reading Banks for the first time, Use of Weapons...

I'll finish the book, but unless the necessity of the unique chronological order becomes abundantly clear in the climax, or the characters start making more sense, I probably won't any further into this author.
It all comes together at the end, and for me it was... let's just say :aaa: . So yes, it's worth sticking with.

The other Culture novels are for the most part more conventionally structured. I'm sure that Banks once said somewhere that he originally wrote Use Of Weapons in chronological order and thought it was lacking, so rewrote it with the forwards/backwards structure to put the key moment at the end.

* # ¿ Feb 28, 2009 00:24
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > No Gravitas Allowed -- The Iain [M.] Banks thread