No Gravitas Allowed -- The Iain [M.] Banks thread

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > No Gravitas Allowed -- The Iain [M.] Banks thread

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

General Battuta posted:

Matter is slightly subversive in that it seems to be making an argument for the insignificance of the human in the face of the vast history and political scope of the Culture galaxy. What's-his-face the betrayer general is set up as a really compelling, loathsome villain, and for most of the book we're occupied with a vain prince's quest to unseat him, and his younger brother's journey out of childhood naivete. But in the end they're all devoured - comped, as Matter would say - by this ancient machine war that renders their struggles totally irrelevant.

Almost like they ... don't... matter.

The title of that book is basically a Shellworld of its own. I loved it, it's like Banks Does Shakespeare.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jul 30, 2012

# ¿ Jul 30, 2012 05:43

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:37

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Krinkle posted:

I'm reading Look to Windward and I enjoyed the parts about the warning signs for societies who are about to Sublime. I am enjoying the detail being spent on Subliming, as it was only tangentially mentioned or discussed before. I like the idea that it's a society-wide fugue state and that the culture tuts to itself that it couldn't have been completely consensual to happen all at once.

There's a phenomenal RPG.net thread about sublimation and the dodgy space pirate dudes who pick through the wreckage and sell the bits. Search for Counting to Infinity.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 12:33

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Turin Turambar posted:

This one, I think

Yes, that's it. Sorry, was on my phone. It's a long thread, but definitely worth paging through for the awesome posthumanist braincandy.

Bailywolf posted:

Counting to Infinity

The ship� Counting to Infinity is a little over four kilometers long- a needle in a cosmic haystack. It�s diameter varies from a few dozen meters to a couple of hundred. Sections are rigged for rotation simulations of gravity. Others arranged and aligned along the axis of flight, so the constant acceleration provided by the Singer engines can create the sensation of gravity for passengers. Counting to Infinity is old. It has changed hands dozens of times. It has been modified, repurposed, damaged, repaired, expanded, and streamlined. It has vast storage spaces, filled with the unknown- possibly unknowable- lost cargos of previous owners. The ship�s control automation is run by a somewhat geriatric AI, which has become stranger as the ship itself has become stranger. The ship was once crewed by hundreds, and could carry thousands more. Now, only a handful of cladistic panhumans ride inside it across the dark between stars. Strangers. Weirdos. Rejects. People running from their pasts. From their memories. From their crimes.

Counting to Infinity travels the regular routes- and sometimes, the less-traveled paths- between the scattered worlds of the Human Diaspora. It carries trade in information, technology, and precious tangle boxes filled with quantum entangled particles� the only way to communicate faster than light. A t-box contains a finite number of entangled bits and its twin somewhere else contains the matched set. Red a bit, and it�s state fixes. On both ends, it can then be read. Used for coms, this can allow the exchange of lots of text, less audio, still less video, and anything really info-dense (like a mind emulation or a really nice feely porn virch) eats tangle like nothing going. Tangle is one of the most valuable commodities in the panhuman universe- varying in value based on bit-density and the location of the tangle-twin. Counting to Infinity used to be able to manufacture tangle-box sets, but that function has long since failed, and nobody knows how to fix it. T-forges are godtech, not unlike the Singer engines.

The Singers allow the ship to accelerate at astonishing rates, fueled by a cough of cosmic hydrogen scooped with a million-kilometer magnetic field. Salvaged from a Singularity- a surge of runaway AI and intelligence augmentation which typically leads to a culture merging with its technology, and evolving into a vast, fast, supermind. In an eyeblink on the cosmic scale though, these world-minds wink out, victims of their own processing speeds. They race to the halting problem. They count to infinity. They think themselves to death. Most don�t last long enough to toy with the exotic physics used to build wonders like the Singers, but those which do are invaluable sources of such super-technology before they inevitably implode. Immortality is possible, but isn�t compatible with godhood. The Rapture of the Nerds is in the end, extinction.

Nobody has figured out how to create s stable, traversable wormhole yet, but in many ways it�s the holy grail of the treasure hunters and high impact archeologist that raid the ruins of posthuman civilizations and strip them for useful tech. Godtech tends to be another commodity- most GT devices are poorly understood, even if they can be made to perform their functions (like the Singers)- handle with care. Opening the case voids your warranty. And likely your life. A wormhole bus that can shuttle network traffic without the harsh limits on throughput imposed by tangle-box coms would be invaluable, and could connect systems separated by incalculable distances, likely putting luggers like Counting to Infinity out of business.

But there�s another reason that this might not be super-keen. Panhuman dataspace is a loving mess. Too many singularities spewing too much hegemonizing crap. Too many post-hoc splices of alien systems. Too many clades trying to make their com protocols the standard. The larger the datapsace, the messier. There are things lurking in networks, in archives, hidden as distributed sleeper aps, things that wreak havoc with network integrity. Most organizations maintain strict data-hygiene and network security. Dataspace is filthy. Anything that computes can become corrupted. Smartmatter- once the vogue- has fallen out of general use because of how easily a software glitch can become a real physical flesh-ripping assimiliating demon-glitch stalking your starship�s corridors. Much grunt computing is handled with microbabbages using nano-mechanical inputs and outputs. Anything housing actual minds (be they AI or Emulation) are the data equivelant of clean rooms, with tiny heavily firewalled channels for external access. The dream of uploading and mind-immortality hasn�t crashed as hard as Singularity, but it isn�t all it was cracked up to be. Most people won�t drink from open sewers, and much of dataspace has about the same affect on infomorph life. Its full of rogue memetic hacks and self-aware evolving disinformation campaigns. The internet is polluted, corrupted, dangerous, and still full of porn. But now, you can catch a fatal STD from cybersex.

Augmetics, genemodding, implanted interfaces� all these things are common, but the utility is somewhat limited in many situations, and the benefits often less than imagined. Yes, you can have a cyberarm. Yes, it can be chrome. No, you won�t be cool. Most people will look at is as the bizarre fetish it is. The flesh is easily repaired, easily enhanced with nanodrugs, its frailties mended with genfixing. Age doesn�t kill any longer, except statistically. Across an infinite timeframe, everyone dies eventually. But backup to a secure server often, and you might come back.

So there you are- aboard the Counting to Infinity, full of broken down wonders and strange cargo and other malcontent spacers with personality problems the size of a galaxy. Lugging through space at a hunch under C, fifty years in cold sleep, a few in orbit, and then back into relativistic isolation for another half cen. Skipping into the future, stuck in the past.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Aug 13, 2012

# ¿ Aug 13, 2012 04:58

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I liked Matter a good deal too, so our tastes may be different.

Me too! Matter was Banks doing Shakespeare, and doing it quite well. Plus, the title is easily his best of all of them. It's set on a Big Dumb Object (made of matter) it is 'matter', as in a topic of discussion, and it is about what 'matters' - with the subtext that what matters to you doesn't matter to anyone above or below you - which is in turn echoed by the structure of the Shellworld.

Just lovely.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2013 01:40

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Holy cocking shitbags.

That makes me so sad.

.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 13:33

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

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,

What was the point, exactly? Thematically it was obviously about identity or the lack of it. The Mind with no name, the shapeshifter going through identity crises, etc. But the ending felt like it didn't really resolve any of the questions it asked. The deaths felt meaningless and it didn't really feel like any of the characters went anywhere. Was it just supposed to be about the meaninglessness of war? Did I miss the point? In any case, it was a cool book, and I'm pumped to get up to the third one, which has a lot of praise heaped on it.

I don't know, either. It's basically an awesome bunch of setpieces slathered with grimness gravy.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2013 12:02

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

General Battuta posted:

Banks never wrote thrillers.

I dunno... Complicity? It's not a set-in-stone definition, is it? Mass market novel with some suspense in it?

# ¿ May 23, 2013 23:43

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

There's a good Stanislaw Lem story about it, in the Cyberiad. You should read the Cyberiad.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 00:17

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Barry Foster posted:

I felt the same way as you, but eventually I reconciled myself to the book (Hydrogen Sonata) by basically coming to this realisation - it was all a Big Shaggy Dog Story. That's the whole point - there isn't some grand amazing meaning behind everything, it just is. Virtually every character in the book is convinced that something cosmically massive and conspiratorial is going on, but it all ends up just being silly petty nonsense. It was absolutely a huge loving waste of time, but there are worse ways to spend your time than following the story up until that point.

I feel this way about Matter, tbh. The 'Matter' of the story really doesn't... but nothing does, to people who are not on the same level as the thing that is happening.

Edit:

quote:

I have been recommended Mieville's Perdido Street Station but it might take me a while to get there.

Oh god I loathe that book. Just hate it. He's a good writer, but his smug addiction to vileness and utterly slipshod plotting and world building enraged me so much I finished the book in a vituperative fury, mutilated the book with pinking shears and fastballed it into the rubbish bin.

Never done that before or since.

YMMV, natch. And it's not even like I think he's bad, it's just that I really don't like that book of his.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jun 26, 2013

# ¿ Jun 26, 2013 05:38

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Barry Foster posted:

I've said it before, but Matter is basically a sci-fi rewrite of Don Quixote. Which is why it rules, hard.

Yep. It's also sci-fi Shakespeare with all the speeches. I love it too, it's sort of the redheaded stepchild of M Banks books but I actually prefer it to Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata which are more popular.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2013 23:11

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Shelvocke posted:

Interested about the mixed reception toward Against a Dark Background, it's probably my favorite. While certainly gloomy and sad, it has a marvelous setting and some great scenes, and the concept of a civilization that has lost so much of its technological progress due to war is an interesting possible future for our own beleaguered planet.

It reads like an awesome homebrew pen and paper RPG campaign, to be honest. He even handwaves in some reason why the ~~players~~ characters can act as a team so well.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2013 02:05

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Lasting Damage posted:

Well, its an independent project announced 4 years ago with no further news, as far as I can tell. So probably dead? All I can find is that they were in the script writing phase, so I would guess things stalled after that.

Douglas Adams described the process of making movies as "cooking a steak by having a procession of people come into the room and breathing on it."

# ¿ Aug 31, 2013 01:28

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Peel posted:

The culture is incredibly, incredibly liberal-imperialist, frankly. For all Banks liked to tear up his passport, their logic is the same as you see all over our op-eds. We're objectively better, and we know it'll work out due to our enlightened civilised wisdom.

The Culture actually is smart enough to pull it off on average, but that's a copout. Anyone can declare that his heroes doing X problematic thing happen to be right. The Orcs really are always chaotic evil, the king really is divinely imbued with ruling ability, the Culture really does know what it's doing.

There's also a part in every Culture book where some nasty piece of work gets a graphic or horrific comeuppance and it's always a little superfluous and a little creepy and juvenile.

I've always thought that, weirdly, Banks' books are an unintentional (?) argument against his professed Marxism/Anarchism ever working in reality since it literally needs benevolent gods to make it work.

And yeah, the revenge porn aspect is always icky.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2014 13:16

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

The pen and paper Rpg Eclipse Phase allows backing up and beaming of consciousness, and managing the mental strain from this is a big part of the game.

It's a bit clunky in the mechanics but is otherwise brilliant and is available for free download on a Creative Commons license, so worth checking out.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2014 20:22

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

sinking belle posted:

I think I like Matter the most. I don't think many people think that they like Matter the most.

Matter is great, because 1. it is Banks doing Shakespeare and 2. the title has like 14 meanings, which you can peel back like ... levels in a shell world.

(and the fact that ultimately almost nothing any of the characters do actually matters is the last and most sublime of them)

# ¿ Nov 19, 2014 01:31

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

door Door door posted:

Just started Matter and when the people inside the shell world fighting a war with gunpowder knew about the Culture, my mind was loving blown. This is gonna be good.

I'm a minority, but Matter is one of my favourites. Think of the title as a shell world itself, with endlessly layered stacks of meaning.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2015 02:30

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

General Battuta posted:

I don't like recommending Phlebas first because, while awesome, it is also ugly and quite mean.

There's a thread of this in all his books.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 01:23

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

MikeJF posted:

The culture is a benevolent oligarchal authoritarian regime which was designed and operates by deliberately creating dictators who are benevolent and good and permissive of personal liberty and passing the authority to them. And where the rest of the designed oligarchs would reign in any who failed to live up to those principles.

it's magical despotism

# ¿ May 3, 2016 08:45

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Otisburg posted:

Doesn't Falling Outside teach Lededje that the power to murder her tormentor was inside her all along? Like a momma cat making her kitten into a mouser?

Banks' profound hardon for torturing evil (seriously they're reeeeally evil, don't worry it's ok) people is his least attractive aspect as a writer IMO.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2016 11:23

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Shockeh posted:

It's one of his MOST attractive to me. "Just because I'm progressive and liberal doesn't mean I have a problem with loving you up if your poo poo is wrong, and no I don't care if you defend it as subjective." is delightful.

Yeah, but torture.

Cf Complicity, where that is basically the entire plot so it's not like he was unaware of the contradiction.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2016 00:32

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

MrWilderheap posted:

I just finished Matter which I really liked for the most part, but the ending felt a little unsatisfying. What were the Oct up to? We found out they were trying to secretly move their fleet but then they just get completely owned by the higher tier civilizations and made irrelevant at the end. Were they some kind of theocratic society? They seemed interesting but we don't wind up finding out much about their motives

So almost like they didn't matter?

# ¿ Jan 24, 2017 04:20

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

remigious posted:

Uh yeah, Gibson is loving awesome. He once described a character's hair as a "black lacquer masterpiece." That has always stuck with me for some reason.

he described hot women as 'gods own hood ornaments' not once but twice in his sprawl trilogy and really that's all the evidence you need that you should not kill your babies but should rather toss them gaily into an industrial shredder

# ¿ Jan 30, 2017 10:59

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:37

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

MikeJF posted:

Also be aware that Banks eventually wrote an epilogue to Against a Dark Background and posted it online.

can someone link me that? it seems to have dropped off the main place it was being hosted.

# ¿ May 27, 2017 23:30

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