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Man, the American edition has some ugly typography.Hedrigall posted:I've also heard that this is the longest Culture novel yet. This.. does not bode well.
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Jun 28, 2012 11:05
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Well that's much better. I've always preferred that UK style though. Also, although artistically I know that it's being the longest Culture novel yet will mean it'll be a bit of a flabby mess (like the last two), I can't deny that I'm still kinda pleased about it. Iain M. Banks was my go-to 'reading for fun' author for quite awhile, so the more he crams in there (preferably about Minds and Drones), the longer it'll hold me out.
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Jun 28, 2012 11:09
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9,000 years old? What's the name for that, Immortalists?
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Jun 28, 2012 11:22
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Hedrigall posted:I've also heard that this is the longest Culture novel yet. Of course it is. His editor lapsed into a coma sometime around The Algebraist.
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Jun 28, 2012 15:36
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I really liked The Algebraist, is general opinion that it sucks? The Dwellers seemed fantastically weird and quite amusing to read about, even if the ending was telegraphed pretty obviously.
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Jun 28, 2012 15:53
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It was a really uneven book with frustrating pacing but a fair bit of cool stuff. I liked the pessimistic setting, which felt a lot bigger and more dangerous than the Culture.
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Jun 28, 2012 15:55
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The Algebraist was absolutely fantastic whenever it was dealing with the Dwellers. The scene where the main bad guy is trying to force them to co-operate by killing hostages is one of the best he's ever written. But overall there's just so much stuff that doesn't need to be in there. It also starts abominably slowly. It's the only one of Banks' books I've read so far that I nearly put down.
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Jun 28, 2012 15:58
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I quite liked The Algebraist, but that was where he seemed to start letting his SF novels sprawl a bit. Matter was the worst culprit.
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Jun 28, 2012 17:22
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Against A Dark Background is my least favourite Banks book. It's like someone's crappy sci-fi rpg campaign bought to life.
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Jun 28, 2012 17:53
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Honestly, I like Surface Detail, and I really really like Matter, partially because they're overlong. Obviously, they're badly edited and full of redundant plot threads, but at this point im just in it for all the mad culture space adventures, and the more of that the better. Certainly wouldn't recommend them to Banks beginners though, and I can see why people don't like them.
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Jun 28, 2012 21:27
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Matter is, by far, the worst of the proper Culture novels. It has all the drifting of Consider Phlebas, but unlike that story it just feels like hits the last page and goes "well, I guess I"m done now time to go ride bikes." The general synopsis for Hydrogen Sonata sounds fantastic, though, but the trope of 'the immortal man' is one of those things that strikes a chord with me so I'm biased.
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Jun 29, 2012 08:23
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Matter's disparate plot threads at least intertwine. Surface Detail has an entire lengthy plot and character that could be removed from the book with no real loss.
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Jun 29, 2012 14:35
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Matter's disparate plot threads at least intertwine. Surface Detail has an entire lengthy plot and character that could be removed from the book with no real loss. If you're talking about Chay I think that's interesting and illustrative of the stakes being played for.
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Jun 29, 2012 14:50
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Pope Guilty posted:If you're talking about Chay I think that's interesting and illustrative of the stakes being played for. I liked it for flavor, but I gotta agree that it could easily have been removed. It has no connection whatsoever to the rest of the plot. A thing I'm finding amusing, by the way, is that as far as I recall, Banks has put in a first-person scene where people wake up from serious trauma/some kind of induced coma/etc in every Culture book. The slow regaining of consciousness, the opening of the eyes, trying to move limbs and failing, and so on. It's in every book.
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Jun 29, 2012 15:12
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Pope Guilty posted:If you're talking about Chay I think that's interesting and illustrative of the stakes being played for. No, that storyline definitely needs to be there, it really drives how how abhorent the Pro-Hell position is. I was talking about Yime Nsokyi. I'd read an entire book centered on her, but she was a waste in Surface Detial.
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Jun 29, 2012 15:29
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Carthag posted:It's in every book.
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Jun 29, 2012 18:48
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Lemmi Caution posted:Escarpment. I think I'm missing some reference here...?
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Jun 30, 2012 03:44
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It's a word that turns up all over Iain's writings. Definition: A long, steep slope, esp. one at the edge of a plateau or separating areas of land at different heights.
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Jun 30, 2012 03:51
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He even named a class of ships Escarpment. Laughed out loud at that.
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Jun 30, 2012 03:55
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Oh, right. I was thinking of the ship class, yeah.
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Jun 30, 2012 05:07
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:No, that storyline definitely needs to be there, it really drives how how abhorent the Pro-Hell position is. I was talking about Yime Nsokyi. I'd read an entire book centered on her, but she was a waste in Surface Detial. Oh, yeah. It's like he wanted to bring the Bulbitians in somehow and Yime was how he decided to do it. Yime in Veppers' mansion could, of course, have been anybody.
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Jun 30, 2012 10:22
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Got tickets to see Iain Banks at the Edinburgh Book Festival this summer, should be great! Unfortunately he won't be bringing the M and is promoting a new fiction novel, but I still can't wait.
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Jul 1, 2012 18:13
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Another thing that appears in nearly every book is 'sweetmeats'. What the hell?
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Jul 2, 2012 13:39
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Against A Dark Background is my least favourite Banks book. It's like someone's crappy sci-fi rpg campaign bought to life. I love this book. I found the idea of a civilisation so far from the rest of the galaxy that its completely isolated and in a state of technologic decline really apealling.
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Jul 2, 2012 19:39
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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.
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Jul 3, 2012 08:35
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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)
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Jul 3, 2012 09:11
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The Affront owns, everything about them is so weird and great.
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Jul 3, 2012 11:38
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Tace Vim posted:Another thing that appears in nearly every book is 'sweetmeats'. What the hell? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confectionery
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Jul 3, 2012 12:53
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WeAreTheRomans posted:The Affront owns, everything about them is so weird and great.
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Jul 3, 2012 13:38
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The Supreme Court posted:I really liked The Algebraist, is general opinion that it sucks? The Dwellers seemed fantastically weird and quite amusing to read about, even if the ending was telegraphed pretty obviously. I also really enjoyed it... the pacing isn't perfect, but as another poster said, the universe seems so much more dangerous and unforgiving in it, which gives the plot a sense of urgency and immediacy that I don't always get with Culture books. I liked the ending, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping he'd come back to that universe someday and explore the ramifications of the events of the first book. WeAreTheRomans posted:The Affront owns, everything about them is so weird and great. The central plot of Excession is pretty ho-hum, but it's wrapped in so many awesome things (the Affront, a detailed look at the inner workings of the Minds, etc) that I can't be be mad at it. gently caress, I wish all my Banks books weren't boxed up at my parents' house on the other side of the planet. 
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Jul 3, 2012 14:22
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Less Fat Luke posted:I believe it's just an old-fashioned way of referring to candy. I thought it was like offal? various unidentifyable bits of gore?
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Jul 3, 2012 14:44
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While the Affront are pretty jovial and hilarious on-screen, I think it's worth remembering that they're a species of sadistic rapists with a penchant for the species-wide moral equivalent of genital mutilation (worse, I guess). I'm sure they have their own moral standards and all but much like the Culture I'm little inclined to respect them. They're great characters, but part of that greatness is the seductive bonhomie of their jovially psychopathic screen presence counterposed against the fact that they're severely hosed up. I'm not totally sure what it says about that guy from Excession that he wanted to be one of them.
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Jul 3, 2012 14:53
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Pound_Coin posted:I thought it was like offal? various unidentifyable bits of gore? That'd be sweetbreads. General Battuta posted:They're great characters, but part of that greatness is the seductive bonhomie of their jovially psychopathic screen presence counterposed against the fact that they're severely hosed up. I'm not totally sure what it says about that guy from Excession that he wanted to be one of them. Banks excels at making utterly reprehensible species/societies seem like they're just a bit of knock-about laddy fun. The same thing could be said of the Dwellers (and interestingly, they're both floating jellyfish things). And it says that he's also a pretty awful person - but much less entertaining. Actually, thinking about it, most of Banks' main characters are pretty unpleasant and/or uncharismatic.
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Jul 3, 2012 15:56
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Barry Foster posted:Actually, thinking about it, most of Banks' main characters are pretty unpleasant and/or uncharismatic. You know, now that you mention it they are. It's weird how he creates this utopia where every person has the potential to become whatever they aspire and they uniformly turn out to be nasty and/or spoiled. It's a weird contrast with Star Trek where everyone is all altruistic yet both societies seem to have the same aspirations as a whole. I guess its the minds that keep poo poo from just spiraling into overwhelming ennui.
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Jul 3, 2012 17:40
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Given everyone's love for Use of Weapons, I'm pretty happy that it's the one Culture novel I still have left to read. It did make the big reveal at the end of Surface Detail a bit of a "huh?" moment for me, though.Barry Foster posted:Actually, thinking about it, most of Banks' main characters are pretty unpleasant and/or uncharismatic. Yeah, that seems to be true for pretty much all his books I've read, M or otherwise. Am I alone in also really liking his non-sci-fi books about an Edinburgh laddie gannin aboot getting into trouble? Stuff like Complicity, The Crow Road, Dead Air, even Whit to some extent. I enjoyed The Business, too, although it left me with the weird feeling I'd been reading an alternative take on William Gibson's Blue Ant series.
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Jul 3, 2012 17:47
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My favorite thing about the Affront is the implication their previous mentor civilization sublimed because they were so disgusted and frustrated by them. As if the Affront ate one of their liaisons and they collectively said "gently caress this", and became multidimensional energy beings or whatever.
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Jul 3, 2012 18:10
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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.
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Jul 3, 2012 21:07
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MikeJF posted: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. 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. I just re-read the book and I had forgotten how vile the Empire turns out to be. It's like the entire ruling class is composed of Elethomels from UoW. The Chair was a singular act of absolute brutality (or so I remember; I need to re-read it), but in Azad, entire bands worth of instruments were made the same way. That act of brutality basically destroyed Elethomel, but the ruling class of Azad revel in it. Banks does have a gift for crafting utterly reprehensible people and socities.
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Jul 4, 2012 01:21
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MeLKoR posted:It's weird how he creates this utopia where every person has the potential to become whatever they aspire and they uniformly turn out to be nasty and/or spoiled. There are trillions of Culture citizens we never meet or only meet in passing who are perfectly fine and taking full advantage of their awesome society. They are boring and no one would want to read novels about them. In fact I would say that anytime you come across a normal, well-adjusted citizen of the Culture in the novels, they are probably about to meet a gruesome, plot-advancing death. Gabriel Grub fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jul 4, 2012 |
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Jul 4, 2012 02:41
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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.
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Jul 4, 2012 10:37
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