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Given everyone's love for Use of Weapons, I'm pretty happy that it's the one Culture novel I still have left to read. It did make the big reveal at the end of Surface Detail a bit of a "huh?" moment for me, though.Barry Foster posted:Actually, thinking about it, most of Banks' main characters are pretty unpleasant and/or uncharismatic. Yeah, that seems to be true for pretty much all his books I've read, M or otherwise. Am I alone in also really liking his non-sci-fi books about an Edinburgh laddie gannin aboot getting into trouble? Stuff like Complicity, The Crow Road, Dead Air, even Whit to some extent. I enjoyed The Business, too, although it left me with the weird feeling I'd been reading an alternative take on William Gibson's Blue Ant series.
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Jul 3, 2012 17:47
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I don't know, I seem to remember it's mentioned a few times that technological advances within the Culture are generally pretty slow - they basically already have everything they could possibly need or want so where's the impetus for advances? Though this probably doesn't apply to SC. And while everyone has access to limitless technomagic, that doesn't necessarily mean that every person (or ship/Mind/world) chooses to be at the cutting edge; it's pretty likely that in some places it's fashionable to only use thousand year old tech.
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Aug 5, 2012 12:59
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Jesse Iceberg posted:Though I hope one day Banks might be able to re-visit the universe he established for The Algebraist. I did quite like the somewhat more restrictive rule-set (no non-wormhole FTL travel, AIs are hunted & not omnipotents like the Culture Minds, galactic society in the Mercatoria is a massively multi-layered semi-feudalism, not a post-scarcity utopia, etc). 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. Fake edit: Unfortunately while writing this post I noticed that it specifically refers to Earth as being the home planet of the humans in the book, so I guess they can't be the same universe.
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Aug 22, 2012 03:31
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I sort of felt that was half the point. These hyperintelligent Minds wade into a situation that really has very little to do with them, get a whole bunch of people killed in pursuit of a piece of information that isn't much of their business, and at the end the whole thing is for nothing because they decide to keep it secret anyway - the outcome is practically same as if they had never done anything. It demonstrates the Culture's predilection for meddling in stuff they don't really need to, the unintended consequences that result from the actions of even beings of godlike power and intellect, and the ultimate pointlessness of some of what they do. Also puts into question the actual worth of some of the Culture's other, ostensibly successful, rip-roaring adventures. I thought it was decent, but I've liked basically every M novel I've read. Not his best, but I wasn't disappointed. Even when the plots aren't amazing, it's the worldbuilding, the big setpiece scenes and the little throwaway details of these aliens' lives that I enjoy most. e: slightly more conservative spoilers big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 21:30
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That's very lovely news, really sad.
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Apr 3, 2013 12:45
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"The final interview" in the Guardian. It's pretty good, made me rather sad though.
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Jun 15, 2013 17:19
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Those On My Left posted:Just finished Inversions, and with that, the Culture novels (although I still have the short stories in State of the Art to go). Overall, I am pretty ambivalent about Inversions. I think my experience of the book was highly damaged by expecting it to be a Culture novel, which it basically isn't. It also appeared to be infected with a Matter-esque narrative: Spend the whole book meandering about with scene setting, cram all the action into the last tenth of the book. Edit: to elaborate, my understanding is that the planet the story is set in its presumably an uncontacted world which the Culture' s Contact section is a about to, um, contact. Vosill and DeWar are Contact/SC agents sent to research and prepare the groundwork before introducing them to the greater galactic society, but disagree on the best method of doing so. Their differing viewpoints are set out in DeWar's stories about Lavishia. They've chosen to support and protect (and subtly influence) two different but both progressive rulers on the planet in order to change things for the better and prepare the society for Contacting. Possibly Vosill has already done something similar in the mysterious and decidedly more progressive country she pretends to be from. At the end of the book they're both about to move on to do their work elsewhere. big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jun 22, 2013 |
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Jun 22, 2013 00:35
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Autonomous Monster posted:And it's a very sad book. A lot of it seems to be about Banks trying to come to terms with his impending death and- I haven't finished it yet, but I looked ahead a little- failing. Badly.
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Jun 22, 2013 18:15
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Yeah, fair enough then. I think that the lack of a big conclusion that draws everything together and ties up all the loose ends is somewhat typical of the Culture books. In a way it adds to the sense that the stories take place in a "real", complicated and active universe. The characters have lives that go beyond the story told in any particular book - they were doing stuff before we began reading about them and unless they die during the book they carry on doing other stuff afterwards too. I also think that Vosill's story has a more satisfying conclusion if you consider that it isn't actually a story about her. It's Oelph's diary/spy log, and Oelph is arguably the protagonist in this book. He might not be doing anything particularly momentous and certainly isn't a heroic figure or the guy whose actions shape the world, but he's a witness to all the interesting stuff that does happen and we hear about it primarily as it relates to him. It's all about his thoughts, his fears and hopes and feelings. At the end of the book Oelph gets the happy ending where he stops being Vosill's assistant and is given the means to become a doctor in his own right. All the growing as a person and overcoming adversity and whatever else main characters are meant to have happen to them happens to him, while Vosill and DeWar basically jump into the story fully formed and leave it again without having really changed at all. Vosill's story isn't finished, but her story as it relates to Oelph is, and he himself all but gets the "and he lived happily ever after" treatment. If you look at things with that in mind I think that there is a satisfying conclusion in the traditional sense. But honestly most of that stuff I only came up with after giving it some more careful consideration just now, at the time that I read the book I was perfectly happy with how things ended so maybe I'm just a more passive or easily satisfied reader than you.
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Jun 23, 2013 01:52
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Oelph is a microcosm of the societies the Culture contacts and guides  This is what I meant about being a passive reader. I read loads of books and I generally enjoy them and follow the plot and appreciate the cool world building and big set pieces and character interactions and stuff. But I'm pretty terrible at reading the subtext and I tend to completely miss stuff like this until I start discussing the book with someone and actually have to start thinking about it properly.
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Jun 23, 2013 04:48
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I can't think of any contemporary SF authors who can do Banks' style as well as him, but outside of the space opera in high tech utopia subgenre there are certainly others who I think are pretty great. I really enjoyed Peter F. Hamilton's Great North Road, he is another SF writer actually able to create good characters as well as worlds. Greg Egan has written some interesting stuff about non-human/posthuman intelligence if you don't mind things getting pretty abstract and weird - Diaspora was the first thing I read by him, but I think Permutation City is better and maybe more approachable. Axiomatic is a cool short story collection too. And I recently got through Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief which I'd also firmly recommend. There's a big SF thread in this subforum which I don't really keep up with but was worth checking out last time I gave it a look.
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Jun 25, 2013 07:39
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Radio 4 dramatisation of The State of the Art. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRl9D_agLbU
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Jul 9, 2013 12:49
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There are references to the culture panhumans not being the same as Homo sapiens in other books too. Beyond upgrades like better eyes, hearts, genitalia and so on some people are definitely described as having different sizes or body shapes. The Gzilt in The Hydrogen Sonata are definitely panhuman, but they aren't even mammalian.
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Jul 14, 2013 01:10
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He is called Za, though. I'd never considered it before, but that doesn't seem like the kind of thing Banks would have done by accident.
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Aug 15, 2013 19:14
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gender illusionist posted:Hey, Sleeper Service is eccentric so it can get away with whatever the gently caress it wants.
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Sep 12, 2013 20:02
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Those On My Left posted:Just started The Algebraist. From what I've read so far, it is vintage Banksian space operatic weirdness. Very much looking forwarded to getting further into it.
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Sep 24, 2013 13:28
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Circle Nine posted:If you've not read it, Stonemouth is on sale from Amazon for the whole of the month for $3 as part of their Kindle monthly deal thing.
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Oct 11, 2013 01:16
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Jet Jaguar posted:Oh, great! Raw Spirit is finally available on Kindle now.
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Dec 6, 2013 02:35
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The Quarry was cheap on Amazon recently so I gave it a read. I liked it and it seems like a fitting (if sadly premature) last book. Strangely there are lots of parallels with his first book, The Wasp Factory. I know that he said that he'd written most of the book before he knew about his own cancer, but it's still difficult not to see quite a lot of Banks in Guy, especially in his final rants after they find the tape and when he's on the bridge.
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Dec 23, 2013 01:14
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Tony Montana posted:Why even use people? If you can create AI such as that and materials engineering is at 'magic' stage where you seemingly can do anything - you can create a believable android. Skaffen wouldn't have to look like a suitcase. It's infinitely more practical for a million reasons. They do have those, the ship's avatars for instance. But one of the central conceits of the whole Culture series is that despite the Minds' godlike intelligence, just occasionally there's one human in a trillion who has an ability that they just can't replicate. Also they feel that letting humans feel involved is a good thing to do and gives them a sense of meaning in their lives. Your spoilered bit can be put down pretty much entirely to Zakalwe's distrust of Minds and the Culture in general, remember that he isn't originally a Culture citizen. For all we know they were secretly monitoring him the whole time, but if they were to show up without him first giving some sort of signal then he would know and would never work for them again.
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Jan 12, 2014 14:23
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I just finished Raw Spirit, which as I mentioned briefly before after scoring it on sale (in the English language section of a Japanese bookstore, so basically about as lucky as getting hit by a meteorite), is a non-fiction book wherein Banks's publisher calls him up and asks him if he'd like to be bankrolled to drive around Scotland with various chums visiting distilleries, tasting scotches, and writing about the experience. Important note on your review: the Scottish stuff is whisky. Whiskey is what Americans and the Irish drink.
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Apr 8, 2014 14:21
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Peter Watts seems to share Banks' fascination for body horror and broken main characters, and he can certainly write mysterious alien mindsets. Not sure his writing has quite the same joie de vivre though.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:05
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I think there are others who could do interesting things with the Culture universe but nobody else has Banks' voice. That's the whole reason we read him. I reread Surface Detail recently and although it's grim in places and bad stuff happens overall the whole thing is just so much fun. You can tell that he had a great time writing it and even when the themes are dark or unpleasant reading his books is a joy. Except A Song of Stone, I guess everyone has off days.
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Sep 20, 2014 03:08
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I just reread my second hand copy of Feersum Endjinn and noticed that it's signed Iain M. Banks in the front. For some reason that made me sad, thinking he's not about to sign any more books.  Also reminded me I need to reread Against A Dark Background.
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Sep 23, 2014 20:07
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Mousepractice posted:Did anyone here read this year's Banks-influenced Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Arthur C Clarke and Nebula Award Winner Ann Leckie? It's about space, politics, artificial intelligence, humanity, war, gender, individuality, identity and ethics and it's really good. It also contains several radical action scenes, some mega-architecture and a spot of black humour. If anyone was to take up writing culture novels I'd want it to be her, seriously the best intelligent SF since Iain and all of youse should buy and read it. I liked Ancillary Justice but I wouldn't really compare it with Banks. Not that I'd compared the two before but it didn't have the same feel at all to me. It is good though and I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel.
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Sep 24, 2014 23:09
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Nektu posted:Unrelated: What do we know about the other elder civilizations? Are they also utopias? I don't think the Culture counts as an elder civilisation, they're only a few thousand years old and an Involved instead. The elder civs aren't really described in much detail that I remember, kinda left mysterious with the implication that they're too advanced to care that much about the day to day bustle of the younger galactic community. It did seem like something Banks might have had plans to pick up in a later book, like the Sublime in The Hydrogen Sonata. There are a few equivtech races described though, maybe the Nauptre could be considered to have an isolated utopian society.
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Sep 25, 2014 19:04
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:more like the ROU Let's run this poo poo into the ground LOU It's Not Gravitas That Kills You, It's Hitting The Ground
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Oct 21, 2014 00:25
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xian posted:Have a couple long flights coming up. Thinking Look to Windward, Hydrogen Sonata, and Inversions (the three I haven't read, and state of the Art) I liked Transition, and some versions of it have an M on the front too! Whit and Complicity are both fine (Complicity is better) but didn't really stick with me. Dead Air is decent along similar lines to Complicity, if you like one you'll probably like the other. To me The Business is somehow like Banks' addition to Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy, make of that what you will. The Crow Road is great, and Stonemouth is probably my favourite of his non M works.
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Nov 10, 2014 00:43
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I picked up Canal Dreams in a charity shop a while back and just got around to reading it. I did not see the story going in that direction.  That relaxed, contemplative introductory third of the book, just a hint of hidden trauma in the main character's past (it is an Iain Banks book after all), and then everything goes right off the rails. Not his best work in my opinion but not bad, it's worth it just for the transition between buildup and payoff, don't think I've read anything so intentionally jarring in a while. Also for Hisako's action movie style one woman revenge murder rampage. Holy gently caress.
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Jul 6, 2015 11:48
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It's not really slang, just what the word means.
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Feb 2, 2016 23:29
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Any time you learn a new language you probably start out reading the words "out loud" in your head, so I'd imagine that experience with that would help in books written in dialect or with strange orthographies. Whether growing up bilingual specifically is useful in that context I don't know - in that case you probably read reasonably fluently in both languages, although I know that if I have to switch between languages it takes me a little while to get properly into it. I didn't have much problem with Feersum Endjinn either though.
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Mar 21, 2016 21:24
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Much as I wish it hadn't been the end, it does make a fairly apt finish I think. That and The Quarry, which apparently he'd written practically the whole thing before he even found out he had cancer, pretty hosed.
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Sep 13, 2016 21:46
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The general scifi and fantasy thread would probably be a good place to ask, several posters there make a point of regularly pointing out good new work from PoC and women, and I've had a lot of good recommendations from it. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3554972
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Dec 20, 2016 03:41
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MikeJF posted:And so as not to build expectations, be aware that Inversions isn't usually published with 'A Culture Novel' on the front for a reason. It's not a Culture novel. But sometimes it does have that written there. Because. Inversions is a Culture novel in my eyes. You definitely should read a couple of the others before it though.
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May 26, 2017 03:06
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