|
Pompous Rhombus posted:Is The Culture a utopia? quote:Interviewer: "Would you like to live in the Culture?"
|
#
¿
May 11, 2010 06:33
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2024 09:35 |
|
|
LawrenceOfHerLabia posted:I am reading through Consider Phlebas at the moment. It's the second or third time I've read it. On the current read-through I've noticed that the bit about The Eaters on that island drags on really badly. Also, the idea of The Eaters getting up to what they do jars with what we learn about the culture later. Specifically, the guy they murder clearly doesn't want to be eaten, but the Culture sit by and let it happen. Ok, in that case the Orbital Mind may have flown the coop, but before the mind would have surely monitored them and witnessed others of their number being mutilated. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Vavatch wasn't a Culture orbital.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2011 04:24
|
|
|
LawrenceOfHerLabia posted:I hadn't realised that. I had assumed that as the Culture were going to destroy it and were evacuating the citizenry, it must have been theirs. It makes slightly more sense now. Actually, I don't the Culture was even involved in the evacuation. At least, I don't think it ever explicitly stated that they were. The Culture shuttlecraft on the island and the GSV docked underneath the port were both ex-Culture craft. The shuttle was incredibly old, and the Culture had given it away because it was obsolete. Apparently it had been built at a time when AI wasn't really up to snuff (that's why it was so  ). And the GSV didn't even have a Mind. The only actual Culture presence we saw at Vavatch was the Eschatologist, which was just hanging around in stealth mode, and the SC agent.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2011 18:10
|
|
|
LawrenceOfHerLabia posted:One day I'll learn to read books carefully and not make a tit out of myself in public. I'm re-reading the The Player of Games next. No doubt I shall be asking out of context questions after that as well. Actually, I'm the tit  I got to flipping through my copy last night and it actually does say that the Culture was helping with the evacuation.Consider Phlebas posted:"The Culture said they weren't having this, both sides refused to abandon their precious principles, and the Culture said, 'OK, if you won't back down we're going to blow the place away before you get there." And that's what's happening. Before the Idiran battle fleets arrive the Culture's going to evacuate the whole drat O and then blast it.'
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2011 18:40
|
|
|
Flipswitch posted:One book I haven't seen discussed much is Surface Detail, what do you guys think about it? I thought it was decent but definitely didn't match up to any of the previous books. I was able to enjoy it, but it's definitely not one of the better Culture books. I liked the warship, watching Veppers twirl his moustach, the scenes inside the Culture, and the first half of Lededje's arc, but the plot is a complete mess. Yime's arc is completely superfluous, Lededje's arc is rendered pretty much pointless by not killing Veppers when she had the chance, and the arrangements between Veppers and the Hell factions don't make a drat bit of sense. So the pro-Hell people entrusted their simulation to some fungus growing under some rich dude's estate (which he regularly shoots to pieces on his morning commute) in some comparatively savage civilization? Isn't that a bit like entrusting an important server farm to some stone-age New Guinea highlanders? And why didn't the anti-Hell guys tell him to gently caress off when he claimed he knew where the Hells were hosted, but he wasn't going to tell them until after they had constructed a billion-ship warfleet? It really strains credibility that a civilization as godlike as the Culture couldn't sniff out the location on its own, anyway. They couldn't have just disassembled the Soulkeepers (or whatever they used), or waited for an alien to die and tracked the data transmission? And apparently DRM will still be enforceable in the "interstellar empire" stage of civilization? And regarding Lededje, I thought the whole reason the Culture transported her back home (on a "rogue" warship) was so that they could kill Veppers with some level of deniability. "See? We didn't kill Veppers, that woman with obvious motive who we resurrected from the dead and rushed back to him as quick as we could did!" So unless I misinterpreted that part, doesn't having the warship kill Veppers pretty much bork the entire mission? I really wish Banks would find a brutally honest editor and start taking his advice to heart. There's actually a really solid Culture novel here underneath some clunky plot structure and portions that should have been cut. The same could be said for Matter, I think. It's like the guy has been handing his first drafts straight to the printing presses lately. Finally, I'm kind of displeased with the turn Banks has taken toward Involved galactic diplomacy. It's just my subjective taste, but I liked things better when the diplomacy was a lot more informal (or just hidden from us) and the Culture was more of an unstoppable puppetmaster sticking it's do-gooder nose into everyone else's business. The galaxy felt a lot more wild and unexplored back in the earlier novels. Now it feels like the Culture has to negotiate three levels of bureaucracy and get its papers stamped in duplicate just to move the protagonists into the action.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2011 01:29
|
|
|
Barry Foster posted:Oh, I dunno. Like all the Culture books, we only see the lunatic fringe, and most of them are still pretty level headed for the most part. Absolutely, you'd never want to even be in the same galactic quarter as Falling Outside of Normal Moral Constraints or Grey Area, but I'd imagine most of the Orbital Minds to be totally amiable. I'd much rather live in a world run by Minds, frankly. A world where Masaq Hub was benign dictator would be a pretty awesome. Sure, he's busy managing 50 billion souls but he'll still show up in person to all your parties and tag along when you decide to raft down an active lava tube or whatever.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2012 20:15
|
|
|
I am OK posted:I used to obsessively try and get my head around the scale of GSV bays by obsessively drawing sketches. I think people don't bother because the ships aren't aerodynamic. Banks has said a number of times that Culture ships aren't much to look at, aesthetically. I think he describes them as "shoeboxes with the edges smoothed off". edit: Yeah, there isn't much artwork based on the Culture universe. The only neat thing I've ever found is this picture of Vavatch, which I'm currently using as my desktop:  I took it from this guy and scrubbed the Clear Air Turbulence out of the picture. He didn't have bigger versions at the time. I think GSV gently caress Your God uses it as his avatar, too. Coriolis fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 21, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2012 23:19
|
|
|
Pope Guilty posted:I remember reading about the Culture and about Consider Phlebas, going "wait, why would you fight against the Culture?", and sure enough Horza's reasons are silly as hell. I think Consider Phlebas works best if you come into it with absolutely no knowledge about the Culture. Slowly bringing the reader to realize that Horza is fighting for the bad guys is the only neat trick in an otherwise pretty blah piece of generic space opera, and that's kind of ruined when you spend the whole book going "When are they going to get to the Culture? That place sounds awesome!".
|
|
#
¿
Apr 4, 2012 22:51
|
|
|
So we get to learn more about Subliming and the Culture's backstory? Sounds interesting. I've kind of been hoping Banks would do a story set closer to the foundation of the Culture. Not all the way back to the beginning, I don't think we need an origin story, but set in a time when the Culture's tech was a little less godlike and the galaxy was a little less bureaucratic and orderly. It would be an elegant way of granting more agency to the human characters while sketching in some history as well.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2012 06:26
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:Player of Games definitely has a happy ending. One thing I like about Player of Games is that you can really go either way with it. It could be a happy ending, or it could be pretty gloomy depending on your interpretation of events. I like the gloomier interpretation myself: It's a story about Gurgeh, master game-player, getting used from start to finish as a pawn in SC's bigger game. SC simultaneously uses him to plunge a disfavored empire into civil war, and breaks him of his un-Culturelike traits (which could be maturation or brainwashing, depending on your view). Not only is Gurgeh the right tool for breaking Azad, you could also argue that SC is simultaneously punishing him for rejecting the values of the Culture. He is violently coerced into going along with the mission (Amtiskaw/Imsaho lures him into cheating, threatens to reveal him, and then chokes a bitch to boot, all invisible to the Hub) and then all his information about the Azad culture is filtered by Imsaho to mold his impressions of the society. He arrives back in the Culture only three days later by his subjective time, nearly mute and catatonic, and the book ends with him breaking down in tears. Changed: yes. For the better: possibly. Against his will: definitely. It's like a velvet-gloved version of "He loved Big Brother". I love the Culture, I'd move there in a heartbeat, but I still like that interpretation best.
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2012 21:43
|
|
|
Krinkle posted:Just finished player of games. Stayed up way too late doing so. Came back to read the huge block of spoilers above. what unculturelike traits was he scourged of? Well, it isn't explicitly shown that he's been rid of these traits, but one can assume. The whole first section of the book (with Gurgeh on the orbital) is there to show you how out of place he is in the Culture. In the Culture games are just played for fun, but Gurgeh wants to win which by extension means he wants to dominate the other player. There's a bit where he wishes the Culture had money so there could be real stakes attached to a game. It's also why that friend-chick doesn't want to sleep with him, she says he's too possessive. Azad is a literal embodiment of winning=domination: the more you win, the more people you get to rule. So the whole idea of playing to win is completely antithetical to the Culture's egalitarian, anarchistic values. You actually see the values of the Culture playing out against the values of Azad in the final game between Gurgeh and the Emperor (hierarchy vs networks, domination vs cooperation, etc). By the end Gurgeh has been glutted on games with real stakes, and his final match against the Emperor proves the superiority of the Culture's way of life. Coriolis fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jun 1, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2012 15:18
|
|
|
andrew smash posted:I think they don't even really re-educate gurgeh, at least not in clockwork orange style by any means. The culture is just completely assured of its own moral superiority, in the sense that it's been rigorously examined and upheld in every way. They just put gurgeh in a situation where he has no alternative but to reeducate himself. True, the Culture would never stoop to something so crude as re-education camps (or mindhacking) but given the level of interest Minds can take in individuals as shown in Excession, I feel that somewhere out there is a Mind that considered reforming Gurgeh just as important as the other aspect of the mission.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2012 21:33
|
|
|
Lasting Damage posted:Also, I think the example given by Excession is a bit of an outlier since the Sleeper Service was personally responsible for making a hash of things when it was still the Quietly Confident. It probably is an exceptional case, but I like the idea that Minds can be that concerned for a single individual. It makes them seem a little less godlike.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2012 22:27
|
|
|
andrew smash posted:Be prepared to be somewhat disappointed in Matter. The climax of the story is pretty bad (although the denouement is satisfying). You should really read Look to Windward, I think it's perched with Use of Weapons right on the top of the heap. The pacing is also pretty terrible. It felt like nothing terribly exciting happened in the first 90% of the book, then Banks went "oh gently caress-CLIMAX... end". I'm in agreement with Gravitas Shortfall. I've said this before, but it seems like Banks is becoming one of those authors who become so successful that they start rushing first drafts to print and ignoring their editors. Both Matter and Surface Detail were bloated and contained shaky plot elements that don't hold together well. Even in Look to Windward, for as much as I love that book I always tell people to skip the Behemothaur chapters because as far as I can tell they have no bearing whatsoever on the other two plot arcs.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2012 18:31
|
|
|
Circle Nine posted:It also gives you an idea about who some of the other involveds might be who were involved in the plot against the culture. Who?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2012 15:03
|
|
|
Ah, I didn't remember that part. It's been kind of awhile since I read it. Although that still doesn't really rule out the Interesting Times gang or something. They could have just built different-looking drones.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2012 16:15
|
|
|
Just finished Hydrogen Sonata. Well, it was definitely better than Matter or Surface Detail. I was entertained the whole way through, and there weren't any dangling plot threads that go nowhere. Felt like it had passed in front of an editor once or twice. Too bad the whole mystery underlying the plot was never terribly mysterious to begin with and ended up not even making a difference anyway, oh and killing a bunch of innocent bystanders in the process. I was also kind of disappointed Banks didn't take advantage of QiRia to fill in more of the Culture's backstory. Overall: solid, amusing, but kind of forgettable.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2012 20:14
|
|
|
Those On My Left posted:Glad you enjoyed it. I know several people who started with Player of Games and never found a Culture book that they liked more than it. (I was like that right until I read Look to Windward.) It is definitely the most "Culture = good guys" book, but I also feel like it has the most driven and focused narrative. Player of Games is by far the most thematically coherent Culture novel, which is why I think it's one of the best books in the series and the best one to read first. But I think its best feature is that is very much not a simple "Culture = good guys" story. Don't get me wrong, that's definitely a valid interpretation of what happened in the book, but from another perspective it actually represents the Culture as a monstrously coercive force. The Culture's interaction with Azad provides a nice backdrop, but it's not the heart and soul of the book: rather it's Gurgeh and his character arc. I think the Culture's intervention in Azad is undeniably for the better, but it's on the subject of Gurgeh where the deep ambivalence creeps in. The entire tone of the book really pivots upon your interpretation of what happens to Gurgeh, and whether you think his arc represents personal growth or whether it represents the Culture inflicting a massive crisis of character on him.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2013 17:12
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2024 09:35 |
|
|
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. Plus, people in the Culture can adopt any kind of body they chose. Panhumanity just happens to be the "fashionable" sort of body type in the timeframe covered by the books (again, authorial cheat) but he mentions that in the past all sorts of body types have gone in and out of style, including snake-types and floating clouds of mist. e: poo poo, it just feels too soon to start referring to him in the past tense... 
Coriolis fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Jul 14, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2013 02:39
|
|