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Graviton v2 posted:This. Apart from 'State of the Art' there is no direct invlovment with actual proper 'Human Beings' in any of the books. The afterword(i think) from consider phlebas mentions formal earth-culture contact taking place in like the 23rd century or something. That's the only other instance of it though as far as i know.
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Sep 28, 2011 22:33
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andrew smash posted:The afterword(i think) from consider phlebas mentions formal earth-culture contact taking place in like the 23rd century or something. That's the only other instance of it though as far as i know. I got the impression from the end of State of the Art that we don't last that long but it was quite a while ago that I read it.
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Sep 28, 2011 22:49
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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! It's possible I just missed them, but I always assumed it was a "long time ago in a galaxy far away" type of deal. Sure, they're roughly humans, but either so far away or so long from now that Earth isn't even a memory anymore.
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Sep 29, 2011 00:51
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andrew smash posted:The afterword(i think) from consider phlebas mentions formal earth-culture contact taking place in like the 23rd century or something. That's the only other instance of it though as far as i know.
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Sep 29, 2011 00:55
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Here's some: http://www.i-dig.info/culture/culturefaq.html#EARTHTIME quote:
Some of that is deduced from interviews and the like, some of it from State of the Art and A Few Notes on the Culture. State of the Art is specifically stated to be in 1977 as that's the time when Dziet Sma and the Ship are deciding whether or not to Contact the Earth, as far as I remember that's the only time that official Earth humans are shown and they are described as being just another part of Pan-humanity with a few differences from the Culture norm, such as it is. a kitten fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Sep 29, 2011 |
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Sep 29, 2011 01:41
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Lasting Damage posted:I forget which book(s?) talked about it, but I thought the reason most of the Culture (and some other independent species) were pan-human was literally just because its currently in fashion. The reasoning was that most species didn't evolve into that configuration but chose to change themselves because its a bit like learning a widely spoken language: convenient and makes travelling the galaxy simpler. In Excession, one of the character's ancestors looked like potted plants because it was the style at the time. Banks has said that the initial group of civilizations that became The Culture were roughly humanoid, though. Graviton v2 posted:No poo poo, can you quote it? Dont have book or file with me right now. Appendices: the Idiiran-Culture war posted:(The following three passages have been extracted from A Short History of the Idiran War (English language/Christian calendar version, original text 2110 AD, unaltered). edited by Parharengysa Listach Ja'andeesih Petrain dam Kotosko. The work forms part of an independent, non-commissioned but Contact-approved Earth Extro-Information Pack.) The Dark One fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Sep 29, 2011 |
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Sep 29, 2011 01:50
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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.
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Sep 29, 2011 02:05
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MikeJF posted:You've not read State of the Art. The story is about a contact GCU finding Earth in the 70's.  EDIT: Boo, not available for Kindle. syphon fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Sep 29, 2011 |
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Sep 29, 2011 02:10
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syphon posted:Well, I guess that settles it. I'll have to grab that book. Deffo worth buying, its very touching. (not gay)
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Sep 29, 2011 02:29
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syphon posted:Well, I guess that settles it. I'll have to grab that book. http://www.amazon.com/State-Art-ebook/dp/B00371V6PW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317296553&sr=8-2
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Sep 29, 2011 12:42
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LukeyBoy posted:Are you sure? It seems to be available for me on amazon.com: Amazon hates customers from the United States.
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Sep 29, 2011 16:34
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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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FelchTragedy posted:It was also turned into a BBC radio play. Really? Is it available anywhere?
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Sep 29, 2011 20:22
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withak posted:Amazon hates customers from the United States. Seriously though, what bullshit right?
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Sep 29, 2011 21:16
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Well he IS a British Author after all. Commonwealth's loyalty to the queen and whatnot.
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Sep 30, 2011 00:53
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Finally a chance to punish us for rebelling.
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Sep 30, 2011 00:55
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syphon posted:Well he IS a British Author after all. Commonwealth's loyalty to the queen and whatnot. Yeah, my Orbit trade paperbacks even have a "NOT FOR SALE IN THE USA" warning next to the UPC.
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Sep 30, 2011 01:05
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In Surface Detail, Banks mentions a now defunct civilisation of a "pan-hopper" type, the implication being that there are several successful body types that keep cropping up on different planets just because of convergent evolution. It's a neat little idea. Look at the Azad, they're considered pan-human even though they have three sexes rather than two, which suggests "pan human" covers a pretty wide range.
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Sep 30, 2011 12:59
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Just finished rereading Use of Weapons and there are still some portions of it I really don't understand. The first is the story in the prologue and epilogue with Cullis. For most other flashbacks there's some sort of insight to be gained into Zakalwe psyche, but I really can't see what the prologue and epilogue adds. Also what does the bit at the end 'States of War' show us? Is is just to show us how the Special Circumstances recruit people? Taking advantage of people in handicapped positions and offering them something impossible to refuse.
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Sep 30, 2011 21:23
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I just finished my first Banks book, which was The Player of Games. It was fantastic, and I particularly loved the drones. My favourite character was Flere-Imsaho so the reveal that he was also Mawhrin-Skel was a huge and awesome surprise. I also was upset when it seemed like he was killed, and I was so loving happy when he showed up again a few pages later and saved Gurgeh. I'm going to work my way through the M Banks books now in order, starting with Phlebas, which I bought today. I have one random question about my edition of The Player of Games. Throughout the book, some pages have a little thing at the bottom like this:  It occurs only a few times. I think I only saw "T.P.O.G.-3", "T.P.O.G.-4", "T.P.O.G.-5" and "T.P.O.G.-14". Is this just some printing thing, or what?
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Oct 11, 2011 13:37
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It kind of looks like a footnote. TPOG: The player of games. Maybe it's referencing you to that page for some reason.
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Oct 11, 2011 13:57
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Player of Games is a great place to start. I'd say its much more representative of Culture novels than Consider Phlebas.
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Oct 11, 2011 21:41
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I'd go so far as to say Player of Games is the best Culture novel.
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Oct 12, 2011 09:36
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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.
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Oct 12, 2011 11:38
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Yeah I tend to lean towards either Look to Windward because the Orbital parts read like a stroll through the park and it's easily to get stuck into it. Excession is another great one. I think Matter is probably my least favourite of the Culture novels though.
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Oct 12, 2011 15:26
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MikeJF posted:Eh, to each their own. This. I like Matter most, and I understand that it's probably the one the least people like. Excession being a close second for me.
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Oct 12, 2011 15:30
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I really liked matter until the end sort of came out of nowhere. There was no closure to any of the conflicts in the book, although I did like the very last part where smugdude gets all the moneys and babes.
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Oct 12, 2011 15:39
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What I liked most about Matter is, actually, the ending. I see that there's a lot of loose strings, but I really liked how the story is progressing slowly on several layers, with a very certain type of speed and suddenly everything becomes a rollercoaster of scifi-action... I couldn't put the book down after the Iln broke free in the dig site and had to blaze through the final pages even if it was late at night already.
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Oct 12, 2011 15:44
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There's nothing wrong with the ending, it's just the ending to a different book than the preceding 600 pages or whatever.
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Oct 12, 2011 15:55
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Don't get me wrong, Look To Windward is a better introduction to how the Culture actually functions, Excession is full of great Mind info, and Matter gives you a good feel for how the larger galactic community functions, but Player of Games is more tightly plotted and well structured than any of the others. There's none of the weird and sometimes unecessary digressions that mar the other books.
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Oct 12, 2011 16:00
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Yeah, I'm going to go with Player of Games first for the plot and Excession second for the awesome mind stuff. Don't really get all the Use of Weapons love.
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Oct 12, 2011 16:50
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MeLKoR posted:Yeah, I'm going to go with Player of Games first for the plot and Excession second for the awesome mind stuff. Don't really get all the Use of Weapons love. Use of Weapons is a really great book, but its greatness is not as fundamentally tied to the Culture milieu as the others - it's more about the main character and his journey. It's my personal favorite, I think it outstrips the others by a mile and stands alone really well, but I agree that Player of Games is a great introduction to the setting as a whole.
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Oct 12, 2011 16:53
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I think UoW is one of the more popular books purely based on how it comes together at the end, it's a great trick that works for the first time you read it.
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Oct 12, 2011 17:13
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I also really enjoyed Matter and would like to see a follow-up of some sort. I will, though, concede that it dragged a bit in places, but I still liked it.
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Oct 12, 2011 20:04
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Does anyone like Transition? I thought it was breathtakingly bad. I never cared about who any of the characters were, what they were doing, why they were doing it, or what would happen next. The whole book felt like he had a half remembered dream about the transitioning concept and decided to just bang a book out for the hell of it that ended up lacking everything everything else I expect from and enjoy about Banks' writing. I only remembered it because I was looking to see if there was any info around about his next book and stumbled on Transition release stuff instead. So has there been any word about his next book?
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Oct 12, 2011 21:31
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LtSmash posted:Does anyone like Transition? I thought it was breathtakingly bad. Agreed. Awful. The only good bit in it was the idea that you'd find aliens watching solar eclipses
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Oct 12, 2011 21:46
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LtSmash posted:Does anyone like Transition? I did. I can't really back it up objectively. It really has aspects of Banks' normal fiction and his science fiction (The Business and Inversions come to mind).
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Oct 12, 2011 22:34
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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.
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Oct 13, 2011 00:13
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I felt the same way. I was pretty amused by the personality of the War Ship... Banks also does a pretty good job of making humans seem useless (what with the Fabricaria pumping out hundreds of millions of automated warships). However, the characters seemed a bit weak.
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Oct 13, 2011 00:36
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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 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 pretty great. And while it didn't make much impact when I first read the book whats going on when we first meet it is pretty mind boggling. Culture people are in a 'war' bar and are watching live feeds of people fighting to the death elsewhere in the galaxy. That's horrifying and all on its own but the Culture has its hand in most of the wars out there. They are relaxing watching people kill each other in wars they collectively set in motion. And this is utopia? I'm somewhat puzzled by two parts though: 1) Why go through the trouble of tricking Lededje into thinking she didn't have a slap drone but give her one anyway only to have it end up killing Veppers anyway when she wasn't able to? 2) Why was Yime in it at all? Her whole excursion is one possible contingency to deal with Lededje that SC already knows isn't needed. It never even comes back the way the similar arc in Excession does.
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Oct 13, 2011 04:51
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