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It's been years since I read some of the books but if I recall rightly about the interpretations. Player of games: He was getting disillusioned with the playing of games. Less interested, even cheated and then heard that the player he cheated got a perfect score. Azad and the destruction and absorbtion of the unpleasant society through his playing of the game actually meant he achieved something of an importance through game playing and thus it reinvigorated him. Also I don't know if I've imagined it or not but wasn't the drone amtiskaw whom Gurgeh didn't get along with actually his old drone friend in disguise. This meant that the culture had been playing him quite possibly for a long time in order to get him to fulfil a destiny set out for him and a goal for them. If not Please berate me if I'm wrong, but it's been such a long time. A thing to note about Matter: (I've listened to the audiobook so forgive wrong spelling) The Iln were one of the machine swarm species that the xelecene god beast creatures dealt with in the far past. That's why it was torturing it and before it said "NO FORGIVENESS". Also it wondered at the weird bio creatures as it held djan's head and spine. I felt that the central characters, the royal ones and holsk all went on a journey to matter. They were all pretty likeable characters, even Prince Thurbin who redeemed himself from being very arrogant to finally being noble. Also as a side note even tough Djan and the ship and the drone (as they were SC) are or may be backed up, but they lose that precious exerience of mattering. The quest to matter even when you are insignificant was what the book implied to me. The books are being audioed in increasing amounts so maybe a 17 hour listen of matter might suit people better. The narrator is pretty good with all kinds of different accents. Morganveld sound welsh! Please rate the ship names I've thought of so far: GSV Forbidden cupboard of mystery and wonder. ROU Reversing bus blunder. FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Mar 23, 2009 |
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Mar 23, 2009 22:33
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I was a bit unhappy that the radio verion of state of the art seemed to skip over the relation of the name to story to what it meant in the story.
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Mar 25, 2009 20:58
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Entropic posted:It should be an M-less next, since Matter was last. Haven't heard any hints as to what it's going to be about. 18 months between book releases from now on as he said he is getting on. Matter was early 2008 so it should be approaching I guess. FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Apr 15, 2009 |
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Apr 15, 2009 16:25
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Graviton v2 posted:I think we have all concluded that matter was a bit poo poo. Its the only one I never finished. Nah, Matter was at least OK. I listened to it as an audiobook though. Don't know if that has an effect.
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Jul 4, 2009 18:21
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Cuntpunch posted:I really like the idea, but it felt tossed in and not explored to it's fullest. The early-industrial and court drama just bored me, I suppose. Iln destroyed Xinthians because it seems that Iln were a machine intelligence from what the one at the end says while cradling our SC-er. Xinthians were a big force in the swarm wars, where they battled AI's. Some Xinthians are at the centre of Shell worlds, which means that they might destroy the shell worlds to destroy the Xinthians as they are connected, even if that connection is current residence. There may be some assumptions there and the overall why's of other stuff are still unknown, but that's just how it is.
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Jul 4, 2009 23:25
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alkanphel posted:I think in one of the books somebody asked a Mind that question but I forgot the answer. Something like they could wipe out the humans in the Culture but they choose not to because they want to observe them like guinea pigs or for entertainment. Well they kind of feel benevolent towards their ancestors. They have the unwritten rule not to read the minds of their charges out of this respect, which they are not bound to but choose to respect - or they face a measure of shunning. Also it doesn't cost them anything to run the habitats of their charges. If they didn't want to do it they aren't obliged to. They are just people-ish. When they are created they are made with a personality and influences from their creation. These personalities develop over the mind's lifetime as the AI code develops with their experiences. In matterThe ship isn't infected buy the Iln virus because it's developing personality code is always changing, but does take control of the Morganveld's more computery Intelligence stuff. When some minds were made to have no personality or connection to the humanoid races, they immediately choose to sublime. FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jul 8, 2009 |
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Jul 8, 2009 01:49
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alkanphel posted:The end of Windward suggests thatthe Culture no longer exist after 1 Galactic Cycle. Do you think it means they all sublimed or simply died off? It's not said. So I don't know. It's evident that races in play simply exist and die off, sublime or maybe just move away. Sublimation is a race cashing in it's final score. It could have been destroyed by one of the threat types mentioned in Excession. It could become 3 of those threat types ( Galactic hemegeonising swarm, OCP, sublimed ).
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Jul 8, 2009 02:07
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Fallom posted:I just finished Consider Phlebas and started Player of Games. At about 150 pages into Player of Games I still think Horza was right. About what exactly? It's been a while since I read both.
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Jul 15, 2009 01:22
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DeusEx posted:In my German edition of Consider Phlebas there is a foreword by Ken MacLeod where he interprets the conflict between the Culture and the Idirans on the background of the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan during the 80's. Back then we, the West, supported the Mujahedin against the Red Army, and they were often glorified as god fearing rebels against the soulless, cold, atheistic war machine of the red army. Consider Phelebas was written during that time frame. In the Culture's defense, unlike the Soviets they are cool with whole tranches of their society just going off to do their own thing - like the Elench. Also they don't commit complete genocide against races. Also they tried their hand at appeasement with a lesser race to stop them being so destructive to everyone. Also during the Iridian war the Culture had to adapt to having to be warlike. They didn't want to and it has it's costs. The necessary evil of it all and of parts of special circumstances. There is a bit in Matter where a culture person who is part of the peace movement has a moan at a special circumstancer. I love the sentence in Matter which paraphrased was "Special circumstances agent and combat drone. A cliche often mentioned to scare naughty children and bad people." FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jul 28, 2009 |
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Jul 28, 2009 13:34
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Shameless posted:For anyone interested, the abridged audiobook of Transistion is being released as a free, twice-weekly podcast on iTunes. There's seven parts released so far. I'm in the UK so it might be different for other territories. Thanks. Unabridged or nothing for me though.
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Sep 25, 2009 13:02
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The civilisations of the galaxy don't all progress the same tech in a ladder, they progress up their own particular 'tech face'.
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Oct 31, 2009 17:03
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I always remember Ethics Gradient. Everybody loves the name Ethics Gradient it seems.
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Feb 27, 2010 00:00
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MeLKoR posted:Personally I'm not that much into Consider Phlebas myself, my favorite part of the Culture is the scheming and the Minds and there's very little about them in CP. Me too. It has cool stuff but for accessability player of games is good. Use of Weapons tends to top people's favourites in charts of Banks' stuff.
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Apr 29, 2010 13:35
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v12rv Radio interview for UK people. Good till the 9th of October I think. 15 minutes in.
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Oct 6, 2010 23:55
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https://www.novacon.org.uk Iain and Brian Aldis will be there.
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Oct 11, 2010 18:11
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enigma74 posted:Someone mentioned The Culture as having potentially disappeared after one galactic cycler earlier - something about a hegemonizing swarm, OCM, and sublimination. What does OCM stand for? Also they could have been defeated by a rival of relative strength too. Or a sublimed race they've angered. The latter could constitute an OCP. For instance a civilization could fail from seemingly, prolonged bad luck.
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Oct 13, 2010 12:13
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Taratang posted:An aggressive rival of relative strength would fall under the category of a hegemony. This seems the least likely explanation given the Culture's status as essentially post-scarcity and their performance in the Idiran war. Hegemonising meant in the form of absorbing the culture. You could argue that a victorious force would do this to whatever level, whether it be conquer and rule all the way to dissasembly and self-replication of matter. But you can have a force that simply wants to steralize them. And just because the Idiran's failed doesn't mean that there aren't other forces out there that are equivalent or stronger in scope. They had a war with the Homomdans for a time the Idiran's mentors. Not everyone agrees with 'Don't gently caress with the culture' as shown in Look to Windward. FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Oct 13, 2010 |
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Oct 13, 2010 14:44
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andrew smash posted:The existence of special circumstances in general is a specialized case of what I consider the central conceit of the culture novels in general. The Minds keeping humans around at all makes for more interesting stories but the idea that humans (and drones for that matter) can do *anything* more effectively than Minds is pretty silly when they are really not much more than entertaining and occasionally insightful pets. It's something for people to do. The culture isn't just the Minds, it's the people and AI's in it. Also the minds pretty much care about stuff. Some more than others. Remember the bit in Look to Windward, when the Masaq hub relates what it had to do in the Idiran war and how it observed what it did. 'People matter'. That was the point expressed multiple times with different aspects in the book 'Matter'.
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Nov 1, 2010 17:14
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The Dark One posted:Peer pressure from its fellow gods keeps it in check, or they give it a mean name behind its back or something. Exactly. Plus it's the culture of the culture to be sort of very nice. Well intentioned at least. Reminds me that the Rapid offense units are argued by some to look quite ugly as ships are designed to be out of some form of guilt from the Minds. If the culture Minds did decide to wipe out it's biological charges it would be similar to all the other AI swarm wars that had existed in the past. Matter spoiler: ___________________Like the Iln___________________ Look to windward spoiler: Also you do get rogue Minds who do turn on their own. Also the possibility of a rogue group of Minds that are OK with causing the death of billions in order to harden themselves from without and stop decadent complacency.
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Nov 3, 2010 15:43
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Going to meet Iain next week. Anything worth asking maybe?
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Nov 5, 2010 02:16
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Graviton v2 posted:Ask him if he is a swinger. NO. I meant something I wasn't already going to ask him. About books and poo poo.
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Nov 5, 2010 13:37
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Instead of signing my audiobook here is a message from Iain: hello, good to see you
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Nov 12, 2010 22:59
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Oh poo poo I forgot to mention that I sepnt about 5 hours chatting to Iain over the course of the three day convention stuff I learned. Use of weapons: Originally the book's use of Reverse chapters resulted in the story ending in the middle which was an anti climax. With the insight of his mate Ken McCleod he reworked it to it's current state. Surface Detail: The gold in the mercury lake thing was pointed out as scientifically not working. Iain said I will have that corrected in the next edition. OK stuff I can remember from my chat: I made a ship name that I put on my badge. He looked at it at worked out it's meaning and was really thrilled as he thought it was like a crossword puzzle. I hadn't thought of it that way but I guess it fit. I also mentioned that there people here on the forums I use who usernames named after Minds. He was chuffed by that. I said that because he keeps going geting honarary phd's the universities are having to put up tuition fees in order to fund his acceptance ceremonies. And thus I comically accused him that he was stifling social mobility. Of the Scifi he watches on TV his favourite was Farscape. Also he watches loads of TV shows that we all watch like IT crowd and big bang theorey but he hadn't seen Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. So I told it was a pisstake of a certain author as well as some other authors and reccommended it to him to watch. Talked about politics and other stuff. I'm afraid I forgot the questions that you all asked me to ask. It was difficult anyway because the convo was swirling away and with other people and it seemed wrong to pull out a phone and ask questions. I did one question of my own and it seemed real nerdy of me. FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Feb 8, 2011 |
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Feb 8, 2011 00:35
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wins32767 posted:What was the name? ROU: Reversing bus Blunder It took him about 10 seconds.
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Feb 8, 2011 03:24
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Just finished The Business. I liked the main character and the book had a really interesting premise, but overall Banks kind of squandered it. I mean seriously getting some super-rich dude to reveal his part in a huge conspiracy by locking him out of his new Ferrari and over-revving the engine? The Business was about a culture like organisation on earth. The big bosses were like the minds etc. Also I think that the name the business was also a play on "Do you want the business?" an offer from prostitutes to trade. That was what was being asked of the main character in marrying that member of royalty.
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Feb 10, 2011 16:00
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Consider Phlebas: The game of damage. Player of games: Fire rolling across a planet surface. Or that web game. Use of weapons: A bed full of catemites. Excession: A bat with it's wings torn off and a tennis racket. Look to windward: Cable car plate continent. Or lava canoe Matter: Floating dildo drone. Surface Detail: A vision of the hell. Fearsum Enjin:Disembodied head with it's tongue saying "Gibibibibi" Algebraist:Dweller barge. Or people lined up and encased in that wrap as they are about to fired out of Luicferous' space ship Not read Inversions or Against a dark background yet. FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Feb 20, 2011 |
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Feb 20, 2011 20:22
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lodidah posted:A couple weeks ago I saw at the library The State of the Art and decided to take it out as I had been meaning on reading Bank's sf books. I read Wasp Factory years ago and loved it and I also read The Business, which was just odd. It does a bit. There are call backs usually in the form of a paragraph while people discuss previous characters or there is mention of previous stuff. Read them in order I say. Player of games is a favourite as well as Use of Weapons.
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Jun 6, 2011 12:31
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:On the other hand, the callbacks are so tiny as to be insignificant really. I say read whatever you have access to! The callback in player of games kind of spoiled Phlebas a bit for me. Matter has a spoiler for Excession. And Surface Detail really needs to be read after another of the books i.e. -----------Use Of Weapons------
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Jun 6, 2011 15:16
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I mean it's not all free will. People can only ask for what is reasonable and feasible and expect satisfatcion. Also if it's democratically OK i.e. doesn't impinge on others enough. Also there is the one rule that the Minds have for biologicals in terms of mind reading them. Plus not hurting them in certain ways if avoidable. I'm going to see Iain tomorrow at a talk now that he's doing the rounds for the paperback release of Surface Detail.
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Jun 6, 2011 22:58
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It was also turned into a BBC radio play.
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Sep 29, 2011 20:14
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LtSmash posted:I enjoyed it overall but it was kind of weak. There were some interesting threads but it just didn't seem as well developed as the other books. The hells, the Culture section that deals with sublimed, some more involved politics, what it means to be alive when virtual realities are real and the many simultaneous existences of Vatueil. The Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is a psychopath. It's a warship which happens to have that psychology mode always switched on it seems. It could of course be the natural personality of the Mind. It gives this away in it's lack of caring or lyinig about caring. For instance the bit when Led talks about her rapes and TFOTNMC says"I'm so sorry." chilled me becasue it wasn't. Lack of care. It had a mission and later reveals an opinion of hating the biological shitbags or whatever to the Naptra Reliquarius ship. That might be a lie too but it seems right. The almost-fustration of having to keep her alive in a battle. The War bar where it doesn't give a poo poo, and then the 'I'm so friendly' bit when he tries to coax her on board. The gift of the tattoo - psychopaths give gifts to people that they consider treasured pets that they find useful or entertain them. (I know I have had it happen to me). Then at the end he kills Veppers to save her doing it. She has been abused enough and vengence won't help her and he was built for that job. He ultimately wanted to kill lots of ships as his innate want and then, secondly mission's purpose demanded. Also sociopaths are insubbordinate, demonstarted by his difficult person avatar at the trial at the end. I think killing Veppers was a whim. He also had a 'pet' fondness for Led. She had opened up her personal experiences of the worst kind to him and it had a level of fascination, so it did it for her even though it didn't have to. 1) Because the idea of this in the book is that -what if a slap drone is actually a Mind. 2) World building I guess. They had to represnt the three factions of SC and their relationship to each other. Also below the surface detail, she was a spy. Lots of characters had an underneath personality that contradicted what they seemed to be. There was also a mention of the surface detail of the orbital where Led lived chucked in at the end I think. My tuppence.
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Oct 17, 2011 18:53
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Alien psychology may seem more cruel because you can tweak the cooperation or the competition of a species with itself up or down. Antagonists probably will have some competition tweaked up in whatever respects usually.
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Oct 25, 2011 01:58
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gender illusionist posted:Really? Is it available anywhere? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2d4zgvipME Oh by the way BBC are doing Wasp Factory for Bookclub which starts today, but also repeated on Thursday and will also be available for a week after that on Iplayer. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006s5sf FelchTragedy fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Nov 6, 2011 |
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Nov 6, 2011 21:03
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Back in 2010 Iain typed out and posted in this thread. He struggled with a laggy smartphone to give you this message when I described you as being intelligent and witty fans, whose opinions I respected.FelchTragedy posted:Instead of signing my audiobook here is a message from Iain: El-Bonko Himself posted:hello, good to see you
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Jun 10, 2013 00:34
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Over the last few years his audiobooks have been released at a rapid rate. Treat yourself. I hope his giant list of ship names is released. I think a montage video of fans reading them out would be an a amazing tribute. Or at least come up with their own. International culture ship name day. I have mine, what's yours?
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Jun 10, 2013 13:19
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big scary monsters posted:"The final interview" in the Guardian. It's pretty good, made me rather sad though. At that convention I was at when having a chat about Dr. Who I talked to him about the rules of the scripts and I used the term "Put the monster back in the box as it's a comforter for children." When someone came up to the table and asked him if he would write a Dr. Who he did a small sigh, like it was a question he had been asked many a time before. His favourite scifi show was Farscape by the way. He also agreed with my opinion about Player of Games being the best starter book for the culture when he repeated it on stage at a talk (I can't remember, it might of been his M. books). He did make a few notes on references I gave him on his phone I'm touched that he said these things.
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Jun 16, 2013 02:34
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Final interview for camera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vrypvdqWI
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Jun 20, 2013 02:27
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Coriolis posted:There's a wide variety of alien biology out there, but there are also some general body-types that crop up pretty frequently and the human-type is one of them. Banks also seems to like floating gasbag aliens (Behemothaurs and Xinthians), and tripedal aliens (Idirans and Homomda). Anything that vaguely resembles a human (two arms, two legs, one head) gets lumped under the umbrella term "panhumanity" or "human basic", though frequently they're just referred to as "human". Banks doesn't bother very often to inform the reader of all the little differences between the "human" characters, but he'll occasionally throw in little asides like describing the fur covering one character, or another character being jet-black, and so on. It's kind of an authorial cheat in order to retain relatable characters and conflicts, while still giving a vague nod toward plausibility. Also Pan-hoppers.
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Jul 18, 2013 02:47
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