|
Entropic posted:(which is obvious from the beginning if you noticed that it a says "A Culture Novel" on the cover) All three covers of Inversions that I've seen don't have "A Culture Novel"...
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2009 19:46
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:54 |
|
|
mllaneza posted:It's mentioned that a Culture warship can convince an opponent to suicide. The scene before the suicide is the avenging ship starting its attack. Then there's an abrupt scene transition and the traitor suicides out of guilt. I'm reading that as "an attack is made" and "a possible result occurs". There's a setup and a punchline, so I believe it's an induced suicide. Afterwards, the surrounding warships mention that it was an incredibly cruel thing for the attacking warship to do to the traitor, so I'll take that as confirmation.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2009 16:47
|
|
|
syphon posted:Could imply that they sublimed, went extinct, or even just morphed into a different civili(z|s)ation. Or even just changed their name.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2009 07:30
|
|
|
Kire posted:I don't mean offensive like "How dare that character do that!" I mean 'offensive' as in, it turns my stomach and makes me sick to even think about. Sounds like an apt description of That Moment in Use of Weapons.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2010 10:17
|
|
|
BastardySkull posted:This is from a while back but on the mock-up I have for Use of Weapons at the moment I haven't strayed too far from the current UK cover version. I have the ship on the front but on the back I've mocked up a chair actually made from bones. I would say that showing a chair would not be a major spoiler. Showing it made of bones would be far too much of one. Silhouette, maybe?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2011 12:05
|
|
|
BastardySkull posted:I always imaged the outriggers as just floating, separate bits of ship that are held within the field enclosure but then you'd have to fly tot hem and it'd make no sense. The System-class GSVs are described as being discrete components and not entirely single structures, so this is supported. And that's fine, it's not like you wouldn't be taking an elevator or something around a ship slash city that size anyway, and there's no reason an elevator can't whip across empty space in a Culture-level ship. I always though of a GSV as being vaguely oval in shape, of course with lots of surface detail and parks. I think some have been described as having an environment that wraps around the whole thing rather than just the top, so they look like small flying planets rather than floating islands. But then others just have topside parks and big terraced sides.
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2011 09:46
|
|
|
BastardySkull posted:The idea with the image was that the perspective was from 'inside' the field enclosure so it'd all be air, and if you zoomed out you would rush past the mesh of fields and just see a boring silver bubble. Oh yeah, I know they're just kinda like fuzzy silvery bubbles from the outside, but I always had them mentally generally following that shape inside too, especially on the ones where the parklike surface wraps the whole way around the outside. I'm not really that fond of the whole idea of jagged edges and enormous plates and the like. I like the detail in between them, though.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2011 11:22
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:I just wrote it off as the Culture using different means of anti-grav (probably field related) than the lovely suits the crew had, but it still kinda bugs me. Forcefield pushing against the floor? Or a small internal field engines that counter match the 'gravity' rather than actual anti-grav? The culture's so far in advance of what they had on CAT you'd just assume they'd be using something completely different.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2011 13:42
|
|
|
It's been a while since I read the book, but when reading above I can't help but wonder if there was any chance there was a Mind somewhere quietly effectoring that light off. It's totally the kind of thing they'd do.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2011 07:48
|
|
|
syphon posted:Wait, can you guys cite some specifics? It's been a little while since I've read some of these, but I don't recall any reference to anything even remotely Earth-like in any of the Culture books. Specifically, I don't remember anything to imply one of the books was during medieval earth! You've not read State of the Art. The story is about a contact GCU finding Earth in the 70's.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2011 02:05
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:I'd go so far as to say Player of Games is the best Culture novel. Eh, to each their own. I adore Look to Windward. And of course Use of Weapons has a huge following.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2011 11:38
|
|
|
Pope Guilty posted:Okay, I've got a question about drones in the Culture. Aren't drones considered to be citizens or whatever since the Culture operates on sentience? I'm reading Use of Weapons and Skaffen-Amtiskaw seems to be taking orders from and sometimes acting as a servant to Dizziet Sma- does Special Circumstances operate under different rules, then? I think that's pretty much just a rank thing. Even though they supposedly don't have rank, in SC and so on I think some beings are placed under the command of others.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2011 09:21
|
|
|
That's a very odd title for a Culture book.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2012 10:31
|
|
|
Flipswitch posted:my favourite still belongs to Look to Windward though. Agreed. It's a lovely story about a great and sympathetic set of characters and gives us the best insight into the actual life of Culture peoples in the series. Plus, Masaq' Hub is my favourite character in the whole series. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Feb 27, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2012 07:34
|
|
|
rejutka posted:I just re-read Surface Detail and, well, with all the other level 8 civilisations out there, how come none of them ever prevail against the Culture? I mean, Banks has been hinting increasingly that the Culture is something of a smug bastard that a lot of people would like to embarrass. I think as level 8's go, the Culture is on the high end of the level, because they haven't had the good manners to sublime when they should have. They're also a lot larger than most other 8's (although the Water civilisation from Matter is one exception), especially any single-race ones, and they've fully embraced Minds, which gives them a major strategic and planning advantage. That said, I think it's mostly size. The Homomda, for example, were technologically ahead of the Culture a little during the Idiran war, and supported the Idirans, but they just didn't have the scale to beat them. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Mar 2, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2012 16:30
|
|
|
ROU Hugs?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2012 00:01
|
|
|
In State of the Art they say that they have time travel, but it's limited to being able to glance into the future by roughly one millisecond. Although that's probably quite a lot of time to a Mind.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2012 04:41
|
|
|
Pope Guilty posted:Bifurcation implies splitting a thing into two, whereas the hypotheticals we've been throwing around involve creating a second thing in the image of the first. But if consciousness is a product of the patterning and arrangement rather than of the actual molecules themselves, then there's no distinction between 'the image of' and actually being.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2012 12:17
|
|
|
If continuity of consciousness is the key factor in remaining me, then sleep becomes a troubling proposition.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2012 15:39
|
|
|
Diogines posted:I love the premise of the Culture saga but I just don't like Consider Phlebias, I just couldn't get past the first 120 or so pages. The characters so far introduced were bland and the narrative, uninteresting. If I skip it, where should I start the series? Player of Games is the consensus.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2012 10:28
|
|
|
^Esposito posted:Contact use him because he is capable of doing anything to win. I thought Contact had no idea? Sma certainly didn't.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2012 11:03
|
|
|
Notahippie posted:I think that's a fair interpretation, with the caveat that most of his books to deliberately confront the ambiguity that comes with having one group force their values on another - most of his books deal directly and sympathetically with people who don't agree with the Culture's values and he explicitly acknowledges that this can be a source of violent push-back from those folks. At the end of the day, though, I think you're right that the Culture's values are presented as maximizing happiness for its citizens and their actions as defensible. Not just for their citizens. The Culture is shown as respecting their set of moral rights they see that individuals of other civilizations deserve, and in fact respecting and aiming to manipulate the situation to improve the situation of each of the member individuals above any rights of the abstract culture or civilization that said alien is a member of. That sentence was a bit of a mess. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Jun 1, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2012 06:01
|
|
|
I'm reminded of Look to Windward where the dead Chelgrian admiral talks about how he was turned whilst in storage, not by any modification or special techniques, but just by the Culture waking him up and demonstrating that their way was better.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2012 18:23
|
|
|
Not to mention that one took place in wartime thousands of years before the other.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 5, 2012 00:34
|
|
|
andrew smash posted:I don't know if mostly bloodless really applies to that situation considering SC didn't wow the backwards primitives with their spiffy guns and ships so much as destabilize the social order of a small interplanetary empire almost certainly causing massive upheavals if not an outright civil war. True, but like the Idiran War and all of their other interventions (Chel being the notable anomaly) it saved more lives than it cost - in the long run.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2012 03:19
|
|
|
andrew smash posted:Oh, I know. Got to break a few eggs, etc. My point being that it was as bloodless a handling of the Empire of Azad as possible. The Culture takes the view that inaction is an action in and of itself, and that by not doing what they did, the blood of all those Azad subjects would be on their hands.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2012 03:32
|
|
|
I think the cable car project is about as big as you can get without the need for a Mind to get involved in the process of creation, though. The big stuff they won't just hand out to a human. Then again, I doubt they'd just hand them out to a drone-level-mind either. But yeah, I've always felt that there's a bit of a feel of humans as second-or-third-class in the Culture. The idea of a ship is a good example - the Culture philosophically demands that ships be given their own minds, but what that boils down to is that machine minds can jet around the galaxy as they please - them getting control of a ship is a matter of convincing someone they're worth installing in one - but organics always have to hitchhike. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Maybe, but even if they're right this is still an incredibly arrogant and imperialistic attitude to take. Yep. Remember, though, that the Culture doesn't see an abstract concept of a civilisation or culture as having rights. Just a cluster of individuals, each of which they do see as having them, and in the case of Azad almost all were wishing day-to-day for relief. To the Culture, the Azadi government were just a bunch of bullies with all the guns holding the populace prisoner in their rear end in a top hat civilisation. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Jun 11, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2012 07:42
|
|
|
Wisdom Like Silence, I think. It was definitely a Continent-class.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2012 00:39
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:All three are just tools to be used and discarded. Weapons to be Used, almost.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2012 16:20
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:Look To Windward also provides a look at day to day life in the Culture that the other books don't. Honestly, that's much of the reason why Look to Windward is my favorite culture book. That and the characters are all so drat likeable, and the general tone is more... quiet and contemplative.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2012 16:53
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:Maybe they've finally got pissed off enough about the Culture's field technology to do something about it. That was just that one particular sublimed, wasn't it? Field technology on a basic level seems like it's a kind of fundamental technology to any Involved or even remotely near Involved level group, the Culture's just better at it than most.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2012 11:52
|
|
|
Krinkle posted:I just started reading Excession, and the Affronter dinner was hilarious. I have a question about Dajeil Gelian. Has she literally kept herself pregnant for 40 years just because she likes being pregnant? Or has she been in suspended animation as a pregnant lady in that time? This is the first chapter, by the way, I haven't been sleeping well lately and it is hard to follow what's going on sometimes. Neither, but she's been awake and pregnant for 40 years. (Well, she sleeps daily, presumably. My point is that she hasn't been suspended)
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2012 09:11
|
|
|
Barry Foster posted:Actually, thinking about it, most of Banks' main characters are pretty unpleasant and/or uncharismatic. Like I said before, this is one of the main reasons I like Look to Windward so much. Most of major characters in that are actually pretty likeable, which is kinda rare for a Culture book.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2012 21:07
|
|
|
Pyroclastic posted:Gurgeh from Player of Games is, too. He gets lulled by the Empire of Azad and only sees what amounts to the pleasant surface of the Empire, and when Flere-Imsaho shows him what really goes on, he's utterly disgusted, depressed, and enraged. He completely changes his game afterwards. True, but moral strength isn't too rare in these books. He's not all that nice and likeable as a character early on. Moreso later, of course, as we get to know him and he gets some development. Kabe, Quilan, Masaq', even the somewhat crusty Ziller are all kinda people you wouldn't mind being friends with from the get-go. I've been re-reading Matter, and one thing's bugging me. Why on earth didn't Anaplian boot Ferbin and Holse to the curb as soon as they started the chase after the Iln? She says herself the suits can function just as well without them - probably better, to be honest, without having to take care of the squishy things inside them - but she takes her brother along as basically a spectator on a suicide mission. I know she offers to let them go but given where they were at the time she should have just dumped them for their own safety.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2012 10:37
|
|
|
Prolonged Priapism posted:Re: Matter ^^. The reason is it's fun to read about characters doing things, and not fun to read about autonomous suits doing the same things. We wouldn't care as much if it were just the suits. Also it lets Ferbin sacrifice himself in a pretty cool end for his character. I mean I feel you from a tactical perspective, but honestly 'endless proxy war of perfectly efficient machines' is pretty bland in comparison to characters striving and struggling, even if it doesn't make 100% in universe sense. And 'fun to read' is the main thing for a book to be. True, and normally I can let it go, but it struck me in this particular case because it was her last surviving brother's life she was casually and pointlessly letting be thrown away. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jul 4, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2012 19:54
|
|
|
pseudorandom name posted:Orbitals themselves are held together entirely by fields (much like ships and basically anything other large Culture machine) Hell, at the start of its construction, an orbital is just two squares sitting in space on opposite sides of the hub, spinning around on an invisible forcefield tether. As they construct it they add more plates until it forms a full ring, but it gets inhabited well before the ring gets completed, back at the magical floating squares in space stage. I just discovered that Against a Dark Background has an online epilogue. I wish I'd known that when I first read it, it would have made what was a traditional Banks terrible ending much less infuriating. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Jul 5, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jul 5, 2012 10:56
|
|
|
Krinkle posted:All the humans, however, could be named by rolling your hands all over the keyboard and adding vowels wherever it looks like they're needed. That's generally how I make up sci-fi/fantasy names. A culture name is [Solar System of Birth]-[Planet/Orbital of Birth] [Given Name] [Chosen Name] [Sirname (usually mother)] dam [House Name] Iain M. Banks is apparently 'Sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks dam Queensferry', although we don't really have a 'house' in the culture sense so he used his town or whatever.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2012 12:05
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:But the ships name themselves, Mr. Banks! Based on a couple of other bits in the various books, it seems that their initial name is decided in discussion or with input from with their parent manufactory, presumably whilst the Mind is a child.  MikeJF fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Jul 12, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2012 00:49
|
|
|
Yeah, an orbital is dozens or hundreds times the surface area of Earth. A ring around a star would be millions of times. That said, there's been reference to there being Rings (and Dyson Spheres) in the Culture in the Phlebas appendices, but they're rarer. And the Morthanveld capital nestworld from Matter is a ring that encircles a star, but made of entwining water-filled tubes rather than a relatively flat surface.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2012 11:34
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:54 |
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:It's from a QnA session on the website of The Guardian, a British newspaper. But a few have popped up in books. Hell, he mentioned Look to Windward there; pretty sure the ship that was set to take over from Hub after Hub died was a Gravitas ship
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2012 14:34
|
|