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MikeJF posted:I would disagree on a minor point; I think The Hydrogen Sonata has a note of finality to it that would put it in last place, and that stylistically Look To Windward is one of the middle set, maybe after State of the Art, but definitely not too far after Excession. I'd agree with putting HS last, and go so far as to say that it should be preceded only by SD. It's somehow appropriate that his last books reflect heavily on death and the afterlife, right before his passing, and thus I think they are a good way to close off reading the series.
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Mar 21, 2014 16:25
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This post's spoilers are about Use of Weapons (it is also a couple of weeks old, hopefully no one minds).kujeger posted:I'd also think the reasons a lot of things like that are vague is in order to keep the twist as a surprise. I actually think you've got this backwards. In the chapter where you have both Cheradenine and Elethiomel (VII), the book actually uses their character names in phrases like "Cheradenine said" very often, something that absolutely does not appear (main character-wise) in other chapters. If you have an electronic copy of the book, try searching it to see where, for example, "Zakalwe said" appears: only in accidental formations like "Looks like we get rid of you, Mr. Zakalwe," said a voice from a speaker overhead, and in several repetitions of the more purposeful phrase "Livueta Zakalwe said". In fact, to my knowledge, after (book chronology-wise) the 'switch' there is no instance in which the main character is called Zakalwe or Cheradenine outside of dialogue or a narration of a character's inner state of mind. I just went through more than a hundred consecutive pages to be sure of this, having just finished the book, so it's possible that there's a slip up somewhere I didn't look, but I doubt it. Of course this doesn't make the twist unpredictable. There's a huge amount of evidence that the main character has identity and memory issues (like that preceding paragraph). Also don't think I'm bashing on you, especially since you had admitted it's been a while since you read the book and lord knows I get books' details wrong when speaking off the top of my head. I just wanted to get it into the thread that instead of a sudden ambiguity of identity tipping you off that something's up, it's a sudden lack of ambiguity that might do the same thing. edit: I'm thinking that it's possible you mean it was ambiguous during the entire book about the main character in contrast to how other characters in the same scenes are treated, instead of ambiguous in that chapter in contrast to how other chapters are written. If so I apologize for assuming otherwise, but the reading of your comment that my post is based on seemed the most natural to me at the time. thatdarnedbob fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Mar 23, 2014 |
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Mar 23, 2014 01:09
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thatdarnedbob posted:This post's spoilers are about Use of Weapons (it is also a couple of weeks old, hopefully no one minds). Ah, yeah I think you're entirely right. I only have a hardcopy that I've lent away, so I can't look it up right now, but it's possible the ambiguity (as I experienced it) was that the "Zalaklwe/Chardenine said" was unusually unclear as to whether they were addressing the protagonist/storyteller or someone else. I any case I really should re-read the book!
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Mar 23, 2014 15:10
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kujeger posted:I any case I really should re-read the book! Always the best answer! Funny though, this is the one book of his that I've only read once -- it really got under my skin somehow and while I haven't been avoiding the book I've never found myself going back to it, even though I've reread all the others.
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Mar 23, 2014 15:29
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I just finished Matter and I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would based on what others have said in this thread. It was like Game of Thrones meets the Culture. I could see how people could think the beginning is a bit slow but once the discovery at the falls shows up, poo poo gets real. It was interesting seeing the interactions between the different races that ran the shellworld. Ferbin is kind of annoying at first but totally redeems himself at the end. Holse even gets the reward he deserves for being so loyal to Ferbin. Did we ever find out for sure why the Shellworlds were built? Could the Iln's suggestion at the end that they were created to imprison the galaxy actually be true? Also, I may have missed this but why did the Oct have the fake holo-ships? Did they just want all of their real ships to be above Sursamen because they thought one of their ancestors, an Involucra, was about to be discovered? The only downside was that the version I listened to wasn't read by Peter Kenny, who makes the Culture audiobooks truly amazing.
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Mar 23, 2014 17:22
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ZekeNY posted:Always the best answer! Funny though, this is the one book of his that I've only read once -- it really got under my skin somehow and while I haven't been avoiding the book I've never found myself going back to it, even though I've reread all the others. It'll be fun to go back to it and connect the dots between chapters, especially do some close reading of the poem at the beginning, and also the poem and 'lost book' prologue at the end. I need something to do while coping with the fact that Excession isn't on Kindle and Look to Windward is $15.
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Mar 23, 2014 19:52
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thatdarnedbob posted:It'll be fun to go back to it and connect the dots between chapters, especially do some close reading of the poem at the beginning, and also the poem and 'lost book' prologue at the end. I need something to do while coping with the fact that Excession isn't on Kindle and Look to Windward is $15. I own Excession on kindle, looks like it's still available? http://www.amazon.com/Excession-Iain-M-Banks-ebook/dp/B002TZ3DEO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395607089&sr=8-1&keywords=excession http://www.amazon.co.uk/Excession-Iain-M-Banks-ebook/dp/B002TZ3DEO/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1395607109&sr=8-1
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Mar 23, 2014 21:41
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kujeger posted:I own Excession on kindle, looks like it's still available? It's not available on the US store anymore for whatever reason. I'm going to look into getting UK book on my US kindle and edit this post in joy if it works. edit: so after changing my Kindle to be based out of the London Ritz, I was able to get a few Banks books that are not available on the US Kindle store, and also pick up better prices on all the most egregiously different of the others. As an added tip, if you shop on amazon.com (signed in) after switching to the UK it'll still display the price as converted from pounds to dollars instead of the US price. Thanks for supplying the UK link. I'll post back if I encounter any problems down the line but it seems to have worked fine so far. thatdarnedbob fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Mar 23, 2014 |
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Mar 23, 2014 22:03
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thatdarnedbob posted:It's not available on the US store anymore for whatever reason. I'm going to look into getting UK book on my US kindle and edit this post in joy if it works. I've done this for Excession as well but I have been warned by other goons that this may not be a good idea for the health of your Kindle account. Nothing's happened to me (yet), but I figure I'll pass it on.
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Mar 23, 2014 23:00
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fookolt posted:I've done this for Excession as well but I have been warned by other goons that this may not be a good idea for the health of your Kindle account. Nothing's happened to me (yet), but I figure I'll pass it on. If you're going to do any kind of region-based shenanigans, back up your library with Calibre or something similar.
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Mar 24, 2014 13:45
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I just finished Raw Spirit, which as I mentioned briefly before after scoring it on sale (in the English language section of a Japanese bookstore, so basically about as lucky as getting hit by a meteorite), is a non-fiction book wherein Banks's publisher calls him up and asks him if he'd like to be bankrolled to drive around Scotland with various chums visiting distilleries, tasting scotches, and writing about the experience. It mixes so many things I love: Iain Banks writing, some swell autobiographical detours and bits about his books, cars/driving/roads/motorcycles, a travelog about a part of the world I've long been interested in but know very little about, and not to mention a whole lot about whiskey, which I only started drinking a few years ago since moving to Japan (got really annoyed at the limited selection of beer) and quite enjoy, although certainly not with Banks's background in the stuff. Reading it so relatively soon after he passed it can be quite bittersweet at times... sometimes I'd have to put it down for a few moments when he talks about stuff he plans to get around to someday, going pleasantly senile in 25 years, etc. I think it's pretty natural to admire and like the writers whose books one's enjoyed, but especially after reading Raw Spirit, Banks stands out as the one I'd probably most like to have been friends with, which is all the sadder considering I never met him. I could see this book easily being a miss for many people; either you're not interested in Scotland/scotch, non-fiction, or driving and his constant need to describe every road he took everywhere (for me, I'm planning a re-skim to note down every route taken, distillery/restaurant/bar visited, and then integrating it into a Google Map to bookmark for a future travel plan), but for me, it hit all the right notes. I still have a ton of Banks's stuff both M and otherwise to get through, I reckon this would have made a great coda had I saved it for last.
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Apr 8, 2014 13:40
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Thanks Pompous Rhombus, that review was really good. I've just started Complicity. I'm about a third of the way through. I must say, it feels a lot pulpier than anything else of his that I've read. It is super tawdry and sordid. It has a very page-turney quality but I'm not 100% sure I'm going to be happy with where the story goes. I am also having difficulty seeing all the second person torture stuff as entirely necessary. I've got the point, I think - there's an assassin who will wind up being important to the story, and that assassin is a vigilante who is out for revenge. I guess I'll only know later on, but if that's pretty much it, I'm not sure that we need quite so many worked examples.
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Apr 8, 2014 13:58
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Mild Complicity spoilers I read the second person bits as an extension of the title. You, the reader, is complicit. Especially in light of the end.
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Apr 8, 2014 14:13
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I just finished Raw Spirit, which as I mentioned briefly before after scoring it on sale (in the English language section of a Japanese bookstore, so basically about as lucky as getting hit by a meteorite), is a non-fiction book wherein Banks's publisher calls him up and asks him if he'd like to be bankrolled to drive around Scotland with various chums visiting distilleries, tasting scotches, and writing about the experience. Important note on your review: the Scottish stuff is whisky. Whiskey is what Americans and the Irish drink.
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Apr 8, 2014 14:21
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I'm umming and ahing over my reading order now. Another Banks book is my next space opera after a Julie Czerneda book, but I'm tossing up between Excession and Consider Phlebas. I've read Weapons, Games and State of the Art. Any recommendations for one way or the other?
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Apr 9, 2014 07:33
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Hedrigall posted:I'm umming and ahing over my reading order now. Another Banks book is my next space opera after a Julie Czerneda book, but I'm tossing up between Excession and Consider Phlebas. I've read Weapons, Games and State of the Art. Any recommendations for one way or the other? They're both really good, but in different ways. I feel like Excession is way more Banks-y than Consider Phelbas, but the latter is full of amazing action sequences.
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Apr 9, 2014 07:35
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Hedrigall posted:I'm umming and ahing over my reading order now. Another Banks book is my next space opera after a Julie Czerneda book, but I'm tossing up between Excession and Consider Phlebas. I've read Weapons, Games and State of the Art. Any recommendations for one way or the other? If you want fairly straight out action without any particularly grand theme or emotion to it, Phlebas. If you want intrigue beyond intrigue, and a book almost entirely about the Minds, and you feel like you can cope with a shitload of spy-novel-esque complexity, Excession. But actually I'd suggest a different one entirely. If you want a relatively straightforward read that has oodles of emotion, and a really captivating narrative, read Look to Windward.
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Apr 9, 2014 07:36
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Those On My Left posted:But actually I'd suggest a different one entirely. If you want a relatively straightforward read that has oodles of emotion, and a really captivating narrative, read Look to Windward. I heard I should read that post-Phlebas though :S
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Apr 9, 2014 07:38
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Hedrigall posted:I heard I should read that post-Phlebas though :S I don't think that's fair. Windward references the war in which Phlebas takes place. But I actually can't think of a single thing in Windward which would act as a spoiler for Phlebas. I suppose it depends whether you're worried about spoilers or whether you want to know a bit about the war that Windward references. Really, though, I don't think Windward will ruin Phlebas, and I don't think you can't understand Windward without Phlebas. They're very independent books.
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Apr 9, 2014 07:39
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Yeah, I think the only chronological concern is to read Use of Weapons before Surface Detail. And even then its just so you'll understand a cameo.
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Apr 9, 2014 08:05
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Lasting Damage posted:Yeah, I think the only chronological concern is to read Use of Weapons before Surface Detail. And even then its just so you'll understand a cameo. I'd also suggest reading Excession before Surface Detail to catch a passing reference.
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Apr 9, 2014 17:14
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I'd also suggest reading Excession before Surface Detail to catch a passing reference. Oh. I've done so and can't remember an Excession reference.
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Apr 9, 2014 17:34
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I'd also suggest reading Excession before Surface Detail to catch a passing reference. interesting times gang?
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Apr 9, 2014 19:00
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The upshot to the new reader is that you won't miss anything of consequence by reading out of sequence. Even the reference to 'that character' in Surface Detail can be understood retroactively.
Shockeh fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Apr 10, 2014 |
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Apr 10, 2014 09:23
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Doesn't Matter also reference/spoil a major plot development from Excession (The secret fleet in Sleeper Service)? If it's not Matter, it's one of the (obviously) post-Excession ones. Surface Detail, maybe? I know it wasn't Hydrogen Sonata.
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Apr 10, 2014 09:55
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I'm pretty sure one of the later books mentions the Grey Area committing 'suicide' in Excession as well.
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Apr 10, 2014 11:27
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Those On My Left posted:Thanks Pompous Rhombus, that review was really good. Finished Complicity. Not quite sure what to say about it, but boy did it have me hooked from about the halfway point. There's still some stuff in there that I'm not sure about the purpose of, and I can't quite shake the feeling that it's deliberately smutty, but it was quite a rollercoaster for me and I think ultimately I'm quite happy with it. I was a bit disappointed by the reappearance of a few Banksian tropes: childhood trauma, and the whole 'Scottish murder mystery' thing vaguely reminded me of Crow Road, but that disappointment was fairly quickly allayed by where the book actually wound up going. Overall I found it quite unpredictable but I'm not sure whether that's because it's unpredictable or whether it's because I'm the kind of reader who doesn't work to try to predict these things. I was sure glad it ditched the nuclear conspiracy stuff, because I was worried that was going to wind up being quite dull.
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Apr 10, 2014 12:12
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Doesn't Matter also reference/spoil a major plot development from Excession (The secret fleet in Sleeper Service)? Pretty sure it's in Surface Detail, it's the conversation about slap drones and ships having slap drones that are other ships.
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Apr 10, 2014 12:17
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I decided to go with Consider Phlebas before Excession, because I feel like some relatively mindless (ironic pun!) action and adventure. I just read the beginning where a dude is being executed by drowning in old-people waste  
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Apr 15, 2014 01:44
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Also I found this cool art of an Idiran and now this is how I picture them:
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Apr 16, 2014 01:27
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How odd, I've never looked at them like that, I've always assumed the third limb was frontal, and they'd knuckle it along. Somewhere like a heavily muscled Half Life Vortigaunt but with an almost Sand Worm-esque head. It's a cool piece of art, but just weird how different people mentally image the races.
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Apr 16, 2014 09:41
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Not a fan of the evil demon face on that but that's probably about how I imagined the leg arrangement.
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Apr 16, 2014 10:03
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The head is not at all what I pictured and the front flap was up more in mind, not far from the throat. (The head would be on top, not in front, and more square.) Also, the shoulders should be more to the back, so that the space between them and the front flap is more or less equal to the space between the two shoulders.
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Apr 16, 2014 11:04
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I'm stuck with a mental image of heavily armoured stump-legged tetrahedrons that I'm pretty sure couldn't meaningfully fight but is really entertaining so I'm fine with it anyway.
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Apr 16, 2014 12:25
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Peel posted:I'm stuck with a mental image of heavily armoured stump-legged tetrahedrons that I'm pretty sure couldn't meaningfully fight but is really entertaining so I'm fine with it anyway. Isn't that what the Homomdans look like? I think Kabe described himself as looking to Culture people like a tall black trisymmetric pyramid with little legs and that often people mistake him for furniture. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 13:06
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Kabe - Actually one of the best characters ever put into an Iain M. Banks book. He's a sheer black, angular Portal Turret that perfectly explains Culture 'Ambassadors' in a way that made me laugh out loud. I could read him and Ziller all day.
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Apr 16, 2014 14:07
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MikeJF posted:Isn't that what the Homomdans look like? I think Kabe described himself as looking to Culture people like a tall black trisymmetric pyramid with little legs and that often people mistake him for furniture. With a gigantic, maw-like mouth. Yeah, that's a Homomdan. And yes, Kabe rules. That Idiran image is exactly how I pictured them - the one detail I couldn't figure from reading the text was their 'saddle-shaped' head, but I think that picture does a good job of capturing that.
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Apr 17, 2014 01:23
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For some reason, I really, really struggled to imagine a trefoil leg arrangement. While we're on the subject of Homomdans, do you think banks ever had a plan to develop them more as the unseen enemy trying to foil culture plans, or was that just paranoia on behalf of a few characters?
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Apr 26, 2014 20:30
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Finished The Bridge a few days ago. Ultimately, it didn't work for me. Some great passages, some very evocative imagery, some really emotionally engaging parts, but fundamentally I find it pretty hard to get invested in what are effectively protracted dream sequences.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:34
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I've posted my Banks images on Redbubble for those that are interested. The markup will all go to a charity helping survivors of sexual abuse, of which Banks was patron. http://www.redbubble.com/people/lukejfrost/collections/289653-the-culture-fanart Enjoy!
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May 17, 2014 15:59
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