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Biplane posted:I've read one Banks book, and it was kind of all over the place. Early on you had some colonists I think, exploring a crashed starship and finding something, and then there's an alien warlord with a head for a punching bag and then you're with one of the colonists as he's fleeing someone and ends up with a bunch of balloon people. I didn't really like it. :X Sounds like the algebraist to me (I loved it). If you want an M Banks book that's easier to follow but still good The Player Of Games is p cool
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Mar 12, 2009 17:01
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JgPz posted:Ah this is where I'm running into problems with Use Of Weapons. The characters and situations are on occasion so drat wacky and zany when I was expecting it all to be a little more gritty. I almost stopped reading after the orgy, and again with the mutilation party. The ending sucks balls but I'm not gonna spoil it for you.
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Mar 20, 2009 09:31
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Graviton v2 posted:Yeah that makes sense now. I never read it like that before. Thanks dude! After all the KT was a super class warship and the others from the rock were just medium type things. It's just that they're all out of date tech compared to KT; top of the line when they were built but crap compared to the latest the Culture has to offer. e: anyone read the new Banks book? sounds pretty mad.
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Oct 7, 2009 19:15
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proudfoot posted:In Matter, its pointed out that after a while, you can't really advance technologically, once you hit the peak of technological progress. After rereading the passage though, I am fairly convinced KT killed the AA. I just wonder why a fleet of several hundred warships doesn't simply blow away the Killing Time. I'm sure excession mentions that the reason KT rapes that whole old fleet is that it's newer and more advanced.
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Oct 9, 2009 07:46
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andrew smash posted:The afterword(i think) from consider phlebas mentions formal earth-culture contact taking place in like the 23rd century or something. That's the only other instance of it though as far as i know. I got the impression from the end of State of the Art that we don't last that long but it was quite a while ago that I read it.
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Sep 28, 2011 22:49
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FelchTragedy posted:It was also turned into a BBC radio play. Really? Is it available anywhere?
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Sep 29, 2011 20:22
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big scary monsters posted:I really liked The Algebraist, and I choose to believe that it is set in the Culture universe, but in a region of space that just happens not to have been contacted by any of the Involved just yet. The Dweller's wormholes would probably have been spotted, but given panhumanity there's no reason it couldn't even be another galaxy. Pretty sure the empire in Algebraist is pan galactic, while the main setting is cut off due to being in the middle of nowhere with no wormhole. Also, the Dwellers are pan-galactic too, so they're not in the same universe.
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Aug 22, 2012 07:43
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Barry Foster posted:Incidentally, finished The Hydrogen Sonata yesterday. It's pretty much the definition of a shaggy dog story, isn't it? Not bad, but not particularly interesting either. I just finished it myself and, hah, I loved that about it! Cosson't comment at the end "... ongoing history of Terrific Things The Culture And It's Brilliant Ships Had Got Up To Over The Years" sums up the book nicely - it's a bunch of enthusiast ships; non-contact, non-SC; hanging out together, interfering with things that they don't need to just for something to do, to exercise their considerable muscles, and follow it through to it's pointlessly violent conclusion to satisfy their own vanity. Did anyone else think that some elements of QiRia could be a sort of a Prospero type character, in his philosophical musings on the concept of the Culture and aging in general? e: check this out; Banks on The Use Of Weapons http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2012/oct/12/iain-banks-book-club-podcast the fart question fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 19:26
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Prolonged Priapism posted:I finished the Hydrogen Sonata and it was good. Not great, but pretty good. The point of most Culture novels seems to be that stuff is always happening, but history has lots of inertia and is hard to deflect. I know he probably won't write one I want to see a book with a serious threat to the Culture, and poo poo really hitting the fan. Fortunately the smaller stakes stuff (and plot lines that don't go anywhere) are still pretty interesting. The saddest part of the book for me was when the Beats Working (impatient busybody that it was) got killed. It was effectorising the Liseiden ships so well, I thought for sure it was faking its death.One last ship dance Beats Working killed itself because it's crew got missiled in their escape module while it was playing with the Liseiden.
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Oct 19, 2012 17:13
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Well balls. The Hydrogen Sonata made me laugh quite a bit, but for me the stand out line was one of the last, you know, the one where Cossont is summing up how she thinks the Minds will refer to the whole incident.
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Apr 3, 2013 22:06
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:I just finished Consider Phlebas, and I'm tearing through the Player of Games right now. I can see why many people don't recommend it as a first book: it felt like a really interesting premise in a really interesting universe, but the plot itself felt like a really forced adventure story that didn't really grab me. I enjoyed it enough to try the next few books, but I've got to ask, Yep, the meaningless thing is a common theme.
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Apr 17, 2013 10:58
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http://boingboing.net/2013/05/22/iain-banks-doesnt-write-sf-f.html Check this out, wherein he says, in response to an incorrect belief, that the sci-fi never funded the regular fiction. To me the question is backwards; I could never imagine how someone would think that the culture novels were written just to fund the regular fiction. I always felt the scifi read like it was a labour of love (I really don't like referring to it in the past tense!), especially the culture novels, and in particular Hydrogen Sonata where the Old Guy answers a lot of the culture questions Banks must have got over the years, on his behalf (at least I like to think so). If anything I thought the mainstream was written to fund the scifi. e: I'll also way I wish he'd stop replying to all this kind of bullshit and get on with doing fun things.
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May 23, 2013 00:35
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Well, he had a good run but was cut short which is tragic but I'm happy he had enjoyed his turn at life and I'm glad I've been around to read his books just as they were released. If I could stomach whiskey I'd raise a glass but I can't (believe me, I've tried!) so I'll re-read the M. books in his honour instead.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:57
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/04/iain-banks-asteroid-name-galache YESSSSSSSS In other news, Banks said the best book he wrote was The Bridge, which I'm reading now. So far it's both lighter and heavier than the M. stuff I usually read but I'll hold judgement until I've finished it. I've also just finished Use Of Weapons, which I first read, oh about 14 years ago. It's much more fun on second read knowing the twist at the end and I think it might have bumped itself up to the top of my favorite M. books list. That said, I can't see myself reading it as many times as I have Excession or Algebraist (I can see myself going back to Hydron Sonata quite a few times too).
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Jul 4, 2013 23:25
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Avulsion posted:I loved The Bridge. I picked up my copy while vacationing in Scotland last year, and having seen the titular structure first hand it's easy to understand how such a thing might form the foundation of a dying engineer's surrealistic dreamscape. Just finished The Bridge. Cos of your post I thought he was gonna die so I nearly started blubbing in public (at work!) when he woke up. I loved the easter eggs for the M. readers.
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Jul 10, 2013 22:59
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Seaside Loafer posted:Could you guys elabourate on these easter eggs? Read The Bridge but it was bloody years ago. In the barbarian dream sequence, a knife missile makes a couple of appearances and mirror/cutting fields towards the end.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:41
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Fragmented posted:Is that true? Because if so holy poo poo. I want come crab nebulae Vodka. Yup, true; you find it a lot in star forming nebulae.
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Jul 16, 2013 21:49
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Just the other day I finished Look to Windward and yeah, it's up there as a favorite. For much of the book it's like an essay on the state of mind of the Culture as a whole, if it can be treated as such. A similar thing happens in some of Hydrogen Sonata. All this ship name talk reminds me of the two party goers trading insults in ship names, from Windward.
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Jul 24, 2013 21:55
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ZekeNY posted:I'm surprised at the reactions to The Algebraist; I agree that it takes its time getting started but I found that the build-up paid off pretty well -- I enjoyed the fight between the Starvelings and the Dwellers; the resolution of Taince's quest for vengeance, and the final reveal about the Dweller List and Fassin's efforts to get that information out. Above all, it was just an incredibly rich setting, with weirdness upon weirdness around every corner, and gave me the sense of a fully-inhabited galaxy swarming with intelligences of every possible manner. I guess I'll have to go read it again (it's been acouple of years now), but on a first reading it kept my attention and then some all the way through, and when I got to the end I found myself wishing that it went on for quite a bit longer. I totally agree; algebraist seemed ripe for the kind of treatment the culture received.
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Aug 8, 2013 10:50
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Lasting Damage posted:Yeah, that's why I said it wasn't the only interpretation. I think its possible Flere-Imsaho (and maybe Terminder Xuss) in particular indulge because they think the victims really deserve it. Everyone was just discussing about how the Culture clearly held all of Azadian society in contempt, and I think that was truest of all for Flere-Imsaho. I've always thought this was the case. The culture tries so drat hard not to be assholes and kill people that when they are forced to it is either because of a tragedy or because the victims are such reprehensible cunts that they deserve it. On a related note, I'm reading Excession again and the 'po faced' GCU Wisdom Like Silence mentions the Azadian matter when laying down the procedures for dealing with the excession, suggesting that there was quite a bit of fallout following their intervention. I love the theory about Zakalwe being that drunk diplomat; it certainly fits his modus operandi. It's a shame we can't ask the man himself about it 
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Aug 16, 2013 23:15
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Given that pan-humans and drones can join a group mind to become a Mind so I wouldn't put it in quite those terms.
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Aug 19, 2013 17:39
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I think the events of Excession lend weight to this theory, considering Genar-Hofoen is completely surplus to the Mind's plan to deal with the situation, and is only involved because the Sleeper Service's wants to help Dajeil out of her decades-long depression. Hey, Sleeper Service is eccentric so it can get away with whatever the gently caress it wants.
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Sep 12, 2013 17:58
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big scary monsters posted:Or is it? It said it thought it ended up turning itself slightly eccentric by indulging it's neurose, ie it's obsession with the Genar/Dajeil relationship, in an attempt to appear Eccentric. Phew!
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Sep 12, 2013 22:09
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Red Crown posted:So, I'm wondering what everyone thought of the Mistake Not... . I just finished The Hydrogen Sonata and I wound up really liking it. The ship, that is. Sure, it's pretty arrogant running around with a name like that. At the same time, pretty much every non-Mind develops an attitude with the Minds. The Minds are extraordinarily benevolent and indulging, and bios start thinking that means they're weak. My favorite example is the king of the Hausk in Matter, who told his son that his people had an advantage over the Culture because they were still expanding something something. Ignoring the fact that the Culture has solved every problem that plagues his civilization and then about ten million more they haven't even conceptualized yet. Not to mention the Affront, who actually thought they would get away with pissing off a civilization exponentially larger and more well armed than they were. Have you read Surface Detail yet?
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Oct 12, 2013 19:45
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Red Crown posted:Haha, I forgot about the GFCF. They're even better. Heh, I was thinking about Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
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Oct 12, 2013 20:04
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Just finished Transition. I enjoyed it but it also felt like he tried to squeeze too much into one book; too much time spent on minor superfluous characters.
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Nov 20, 2013 11:32
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A lot of the culture novels often have a large part dedicated to almost an essay on the nature of the culture. e: hell, that's what Inversions is the fart question fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 22:02
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the JJ posted:The City in the City is a lot of fun, especially if you go into it looking for political commentary. It takes a special kind of author to take an absurd premise, write it from the PoV of someone who doesn't find it absurd, and then slowly creep up on the reader with the realization that we're really a lot more like the narrator than we'd thought. I was about to suggest that; it's also a great book because of it's strangeness - the setting is exceptionally hard to visualise so don't try too hard, just accept that it's weird.
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Jan 6, 2014 21:24
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I don't know that politics is completely out of place in this thread, given that these same issues come up in every Culture novel and are even central in several of them (Use of Weapons, Surface Detail, and Look to Windward particularly.) In Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata being a super cool funny badass solves everything.
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Jan 7, 2014 22:50
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Pretty much every Culture novel has a significant proportion dedicated to philosophical musing on the nature of the Culture so maybe read some more and maybe you'll get it.
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Jan 12, 2014 23:26
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MeLKoR posted:On the other hand didn't someone mention in a book how the top tier civilizations have more or less the same kind of tech? Makes sense that at the end of the search for the most powerful weapons everybody would reach the same things. In Hydrogen Sonata, the Culture and the other guys are supposed to be at the same developmental level but the culture's experience in interstellar war with the Idirans and their propensity for exploring everything gave them a significant edge.
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Jan 17, 2014 18:09
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FrozenDorf posted:I thought the original was asked if the instance should be integrated? All the instances spent so much time apart that they all had to be asked. They all went to do their own thing if I remember correctly.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:11
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:I just read Inversions for the first time. What were DeWar and Vosill's points of view that they were trying to prove? I got the impression from the sub-stories that Vosill wanted to prove you could improve a society without being cruel/violent, and DeWar thought it was better to be cruel to be kind. So DeWar was supporting an aggressive expansion-based regime that he felt would improve the societies around it while Vosill was supporting a more relaxed regime that minded its own business. But then Vosill killed a lot of people and didn't seem to give a poo poo about it, and the relaxed regime turned out to be up in everybody's poo poo. Did I misinterpret their argument? You're bang on there that they are the people in DeWar's stories to the young prince. Both of their philosophical positions get a dose of real life, with Vosil killing the torturers and DeWar realising what the King he was defending was capable of. DeWar especially walks away with a 'gently caress this poo poo' attitude.
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Mar 18, 2014 17:00
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Those On My Left posted:The Algebraist is probably my least favourite Banks book ever (it's either that or Matter, it's a pretty close call). The Algebraist is hugely bloated and directionless. It just tries to do way too much, and the central narrative isn't nearly compelling enough. You have some good points but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. Far from the worst I've read of his (song of stone, ug)
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Mar 20, 2014 18:20
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Look to windward is referenced in Hydrogen Sonata iirc.
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Mar 21, 2014 14:35
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