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Look to Windward is still my favourite of the Culture series, with Kabe being the best character by far. I think I may go read it again. I wish there were more chapters with just Kabe, Ziller, Hub and E. H Tersono talking, the cable car chapter is one of my favourites. Do we have any news on a possible next Culture novel? Liveware Problem, however is still the best Mind name.
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Apr 30, 2010 15:14
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CannedMeat posted:I gave Banks another try with Agaist a Dark Background recently, which was also excellent (if you don't mind the fact it gets very dark and depressing). I started Against a Dark Background earlier today, so I've got something to look forward to, the description of the ship-city is really interesting, Log Jam I think it was called? That said, the Culture novels get a lot better onwards from Consider Phlebas, which I feel stands out somewhat as a more action based novel, and I immensely preferred The Player of Games over it. But I guess that's my preference for non-action plots shining through. Although I loved the ending of Matter, so I guess I just prefer them more fast paced.  That said, one of my lecturers today spotted me reading Against a Dark Background and recommend The Wasp Factory and Espedair Street. Would anyone else recommend them? as I have literally no idea what to expect from the non 'M' titles.
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May 5, 2010 00:16
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Entropic posted:The Wasp Factory is amazing, and short, just don't let anyone spoil it for you! My two remaining shelves are rapidly running out of space though with the combination of Banks and Pratchett, drat.
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May 5, 2010 00:30
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Entropic posted:
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May 10, 2010 21:51
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The only "sentient suit" example I can think of was the short story based on the concept in State of the Art. There were smart-suits in Matter but they were explicitly non-sentient. Mind you it's been a while since I read Use of Weapons...?
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Mudlark posted:I just finished Look To Windward, and I have to say that it's the first Banks novel I've read without being left with a sense of... ennui, maybe? The rest of his stuff always ends on a sad note, it seems -- and don't get me wrong, the stuff with Quil and Hub were pretty sad -- but overall the story ends happily. And I like that because I'm a schmuck. Oh boy, I'm waiting for your post when you finish it.
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May 12, 2010 00:42
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mllaneza posted:One other thing about the humans in the Culture, some of them are as good as the Minds at analysis. I believe it's in Use of Weapons, one of the characters is an SC strategic analyst. She's one of a couple dozen people (out of trillions) who regularly outperforms a Mind at analysis tasks out of intuition, lucky genes or whatever. That's one reason why a group as coldbloodedly pragmatic as the Culture Minds will always keep humans around and as full members of the society: out of trillions of people you're going to get some geniuses who can perform at an amazingly high level. Actually, with this talk about Gurgeh, one thing in The Player of Games I didn't quite understand was: in regards to getting black-mailed, apart from the cheating, the other one appeared to be Gurgeh having sex with another character, but I never really understood the importance of that. Especially in regards to the Culture having ultimately zero laws in terms of sexual relationships, what was the significance of this?. It was the one piece that I never quite got and on reflection made little to no sense, did I miss something?
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May 19, 2010 23:50
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Penguingo posted:That's the chick near the start, not the one who wants to design Plates who he sleeps with near the end, right? I think the point of recording Gurgeh loving was to show him as being constantly under surveillance and to put further pressure on him (he reacts against this and wanders around without his contact earring afterwards), as well as to put him off-balance and make him react as SC wanted him to. It's not like he was having some sort of illicit affair, because as you point out, it's very difficult to have an illicit affair in the Culture at a social level - you can still have one at a personal level, like in the "oh god you slept with someone else while we were having babies I cannot possible move on from this and will be pregnant for years" subplot in Excession. TheHeadSage posted:I just finished Consider Phlebas a couple of months ago, and you're correct. It's not that she was a smart as a mind, but it was that if she could make the same leaps in logic as a Mind. I think it was described as if she was given a set of facts, she'd reach the same conclusions as a Mind would, just not as quickly.  With all of that said, I picked up Against A Dark Background earlier in the week but have yet to start it properly, I read the first two chapters and it seemed interesting enough, but RL stuff keeps getting in the way so I haven't had a proper chance to get into it, what are peoples (spoiler free!) thoughts on it before I start?
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May 30, 2010 14:14
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That cover will fit nicely with my library array of Iain M Banks covers.  Honestly, that cover is pretty awesome though.
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Jun 23, 2010 22:24
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Yup, that's Look to Windward. Which is easily my favourite out of the lot simply for the character interaction scenes on the Orbital. Looking back on the Culture novels, for me the lowest of the lot I think is Matter, largely because I didn't care much for the main story, but it however does have one of my favourite endings when the book suddenly jumps the gun and the pace rockets forward, I was glued to it from then on.
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Aug 6, 2010 01:45
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pseudorandom name posted:I don't think the colonial British had control groups and statistics showing their rule was better than the alternative.  That said, one of the books does mention the Culture as being a bit of a bunch of know-it-alls in that regard, I think it was Look to Windward.
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Sep 14, 2010 13:40
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Use of Weapons is one of those books that does need to be read at least twice I think so everything clicks, its layout is a bit scatter gun at times and makes it a bit awkward to read.
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Oct 30, 2010 17:30
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If anything, the last 50 pages or so of Matter I think are the best, generally because the pace kicks into high gear all of a sudden compared to the rest of the book and that had me hooked.
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Nov 4, 2010 21:08
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I hope they update the kindle version of Surface Detail, there's large sections where the dividers for each segment is eliminated and sentances end up leading into each other. Just finished Surface Detail and thought it was pretty good, the ending seemed to come pretty drat fast though compared to the beginning of the novel which stately plodded along.
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Feb 8, 2011 02:45
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God drat, I'd kill for those covers. Edit: Just to add, I'm really loving Excession and Matter, but they are seriously fantastic.
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May 9, 2011 00:58
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Missing 'The State of the Art' too but it isn't a fully fledged book really.
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May 9, 2011 20:19
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The order isn't really important so I wouldn't worry about it, but as others have said (way back), Player of Games is enjoyable in that it's a lot more relaxed in pace and tone felt compared to Use of Weapons or Consider Phlebas which are a lot more action orientated. It's the reason Look to Windward is my favourite of the books, it reads like a daily stroll.
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Jun 6, 2011 13:22
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Be alien-y and stuff was what I guessed for, for the sake of it. Kabe though I found really hard to imagine on the fly, I had to sit down and read his appearance once or twice just to get the idea of how Banks envisioned him.
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Sep 21, 2011 21:48
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Yeah I tend to lean towards either Look to Windward because the Orbital parts read like a stroll through the park and it's easily to get stuck into it. Excession is another great one. I think Matter is probably my least favourite of the Culture novels though.
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Oct 12, 2011 15:26
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I think UoW is one of the more popular books purely based on how it comes together at the end, it's a great trick that works for the first time you read it.
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Oct 12, 2011 17:13
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One book I haven't seen discussed much is Surface Detail, what do you guys think about it? I thought it was decent but definitely didn't match up to any of the previous books.
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Oct 13, 2011 00:13
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poo poo, I own them all on paperback, do I get the next one for my Kindle or add to my collection... 
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Feb 23, 2012 22:15
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mcustic posted:Get the actual book. I know I will. I love my Kindle and hardly buy any physical books anymore but my Banks collection is something else.
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Feb 27, 2012 00:47
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I know I've posted this before in the thread, but Use of Weapons is possibly the best book for the Culture series, my favourite still belongs to Look to Windward though.
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Feb 27, 2012 02:46
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I bought Feersum Endjinn earlier as that and the one with the green cover are the only Iain M Banks books I haven't read, is it any good? I've generally dodged the non-Culture ones for some reason and I never got around to finishing Against a Dark Background as I got interrupted reading it and never went back to it.
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Mar 2, 2012 02:12
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Sweet, I'm wrapping up Children of Dune at the moment so once I've done that I'll get cracking on these, be nice to pick up a paperback as opposed to using my Kindle.
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Mar 2, 2012 14:47
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GSV Are we there yet?
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Mar 2, 2012 18:06
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GSV I'm Sorry, I Just Don't See You That Way.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:12
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Infinite Fun Space still makes me laugh. Once I've finished up reading Paintwork I'll have to binge through my Culture books again.
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Mar 8, 2012 17:15
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If Excession was anything to judge, Culture Minds seem to be something to be very wary of.
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Mar 15, 2012 00:36
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There's that one picture floating in the thread one Goon did, I'd always imagined them as a more rounded version of that, but his version is such a well done design I've mentally substituted it.
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Mar 21, 2012 23:46
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The only alien I had trouble envisioning was Kabe. He's like a triangle on legs isn't he or something?
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Mar 22, 2012 23:43
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CP is pretty good as a stand alone book (if that makes sense) but it's not really a Culture book in any way shape or form, it did get me hooked onto the series though.
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Apr 3, 2012 01:58
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What did you find so bad about CP? I thought it was a pretty good book. The bit with the with the fat fella is a bit disturbing though.
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Apr 3, 2012 23:26
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The drones in the Culture series are generally excellent all around, the one with the ceramic(?) plating in Look to Windward being my favourite.
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Apr 5, 2012 00:13
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Old one I believe, it's been a while since I've read that book though.
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Apr 5, 2012 03:11
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Look to Windward, then Excession.
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Apr 7, 2012 21:44
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Is there a new Culture novel coming out soon? I'm rapidly running out of shelf space to put them all.
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Apr 8, 2012 13:28
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Haha, how did I forget that. Looking forward to it, Surface Detail was a good book but it didn't really strike me as a Culture novel for some reason. Same with Matter.
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Apr 8, 2012 13:49
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Krinkle posted:I bought it on kindle, kindle auto-opens it to chapter one page one. I didn't know there was an epigram! How was I to know to click backwards three times? If anything, PoG is more cheery, if only at the start. As it starts getting further and further in its gets grimmer and grimmer, which is something I love about Banks' books.
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May 25, 2012 14:50
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Coriolis posted:It's a story about Gurgeh, master game-player, getting used from start to finish as a pawn in SC's bigger game. SC simultaneously uses him to plunge a disfavored empire into civil war, and breaks him of his un-Culturelike traits (which could be maturation or brainwashing, depending on your view). Not only is Gurgeh the right tool for breaking Azad, you could also argue that SC is simultaneously punishing him for rejecting the values of the Culture. He is violently coerced into going along with the mission (Amtiskaw/Imsaho lures him into cheating, threatens to reveal him, and then chokes a bitch to boot, all invisible to the Hub) and then all his information about the Azad culture is filtered by Imsaho to mold his impressions of the society. He arrives back in the Culture only three days later by his subjective time, nearly mute and catatonic, and the book ends with him breaking down in tears. Changed: yes. For the better: possibly. Against his will: definitely. It's like a velvet-gloved version of "He loved Big Brother".
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May 30, 2012 22:42
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