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Graviton v2 posted:Im huge Banks fan, with the M and not, but I have to say im not really enoying Matter. I quit half way through it though i'll probably try again. Its a bit like inversions in that the focus is a 'non-involved' but they do vauguely know about the culture. It seems to be to much of a comedy, I prefer the dark sci-fi stuff banks makes. I'd say Matter is most definitely one of the weakest of the Culture novels. I just finished it last week and was pretty disappointed. Just didn't seem to have the magic of his other novels, although the Morthenveld home system was pretty interesting. The ending was rather lackluster and it just felt like the whole story meandered in space for too long. Could have easily been 100pgs shorter I felt.
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Feb 22, 2009 00:19
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Just finished up Look To Windward last night. Completely forgot that I had ordered it off Amazon so had to put down Stephenson's Diamond Age for a bit and plow through it. Absolutely loved it, my new favorite M. book. Look To Windward has such great commentary and insight into the Culture and it's Minds. The scene where Masaq' Hub describes everything he's doing at the moment was beautiful. Hub was just a fantastic character for Banks to go balls out with the space porn. I think it's the book that deals the most with the philosophy of The Culture and that's always been my favorite parts of the Culture Novels. Plus you got to have the just pure alien feel of the Airsphere and the Dirigible Behemothaur parts. Just ordered Excession Amazon. After that it's only Inversions before I've ran dry of M. Banks. That's depressing. His new book doesn't seem to be hard Sci-Fi either, which is a bummer.
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Sep 18, 2009 01:55
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About halfway through it right now. It's...interesting. Mostly about reality shifting and the conflicts in a big kind of political organization overseeing the shifting between the infinite realities. I'm enjoying it, but not as much as I usually enjoy his novels set in the culture or a space setting. It definitely is picking up the pace though and seems to be going somewhere interesting. There was a pretty big shift in the story that I just read. Ha, puns.
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Oct 7, 2009 20:22
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proudfoot posted:You kind of get the idea that the Culture has been technologically stagnant for a while - and the only way forward for them would be to sublime. I'm pretty sure this is actually stated in Look To Windward when the societies in the Universe are being explained on a technological level. They mention the Culture as being one of the races that has reached its peak and simply chooses not to sublime for whatever reason. Think it happens in one of the chapters on the Behemothaurs.
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Oct 9, 2009 03:57
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