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Shall I tell you something that makes you incredibly happy, as a Banks fan? Discovering you hadn't actually read them all. Turns out I thought I'd read Matter but hadn't, and actually mixed it up somehow in my head with one of the others. This makes me far, far more happy than it has any right to, and am devouring it now.
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Mar 18, 2014 13:36
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Hedrigall posted:I have 10 M books and all the non-M books still to go You've not even started my favourite two then, in Surface Detail and Look to Windward, which are both truly fantastic. I'm one of the people who loves Excession mostly because the Minds feature so heavily, but it does wander all over the place, narratively.
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Mar 18, 2014 14:15
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(I've only read PoG, UoW and SotA, and loved all three... "Scratch" aside.)
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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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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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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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My only dislike of that set is how much better I find Matter to be than any of the others. Matter is excellent, and really strikes a chord for me compared to the others, with some of the others being almost a bit too abstract (even for a Banks reference). This shouldn't be taken as too much criticism, as I like the whole series, but I just find that one much better than the rest.
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May 19, 2014 13:22
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Oh now I just want the other Drone as an Avatar, curse you Gravitas Shortfall.
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May 19, 2014 16:48
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I'm actively looking for similar style art of a Ship or Drone now to use as an Avatar. 
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May 19, 2014 20:01
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Hey, it's still a thousand times better than anything I can do, it certainly wasn't a criticism of the quality. 
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May 21, 2014 10:01
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Entropic posted:Updated the OP for the first time in too long, added his final book to the bibliography. This post actually made me hugely  , way more than it logically should.
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Aug 14, 2014 11:10
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GenVec posted:The edust assassin was very Culture in terms of technology, but its overwhelming - and pointless - brutality convinces me that it must have been someone else. There's no point in torturing and killing someone to "send a message" if there's no survivors to tell anyone else what happened.
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Sep 22, 2014 15:58
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Because the Idrians had broken; They understood they'd lost, and why they'd lost. They didn't need any point being made to them. The message is to remind the people behind it (whoever they were) that once roused, the Culture (via Special Circumstances) is quite, quite capable of being exactly as nasty as anyone else, and the fact it chooses not to is purely because of forebearance on their part. Think of the message being "We could root every last one of you out and murder you too, you know. We have decided not to of our own volition, and what you do knowing that is up to you."
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Sep 22, 2014 16:32
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MikeJF posted:Apparently in the sci-fi game Destiny's: the records of the mysterious event/invasion that nearly wiped out humanity centuries before show that it was analysed as it happened as being an "OCP" event. Someone was a fan, I guess. There's a couple of Banks' references in Destiny, apparently.
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Sep 25, 2014 14:29
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:ROU Gone Fission This one actually made me laugh, bravo. I always had a fondness for the ROU I'm Travelling Light, because it works in the same way as Sleeper Service, in it varies depending on where you emphasise the name. Oh, and the GSV Original Pseudonym or the dGOU Look, A Ploughshare, because you can have a whole world of fun playing with names off the (d) tag. Shockeh fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 11:07
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Murgos posted:Those books all have at least one ship with "Gravitas" in it's name, so technically they have the most gravitas. 
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Oct 15, 2014 15:22
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Frankly, the more subtle the better.Entropic posted:Look To Windward was the best of the Culture books IMHO. That's a funny way to write (I can never decide, but I think UoW always comes out on top for me.)
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Nov 4, 2014 14:55
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John Charity Spring posted:The Culture: A Telltale Games Series. Uuuuuuuh Oh God yes.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:13
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I know it's a classic Banks question, but where the hell is my successor to the mantle, world? Where is my author I can just delight in as much? I mean, I've never tried it but I'm reaching the point where I think I'm going to have to do it myself at this rate.* (*Obviously, this is said incredibly tongue in cheek; I have no illusions towards actually achieving this.)
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Jun 23, 2015 13:22
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Having never gotten around to it, I finally finished The Algebraist, and you know, it was so meandering and odd at first I thought I wasn't going to like it to the point it would sour my view on how much I loved Banks in general, but by the end, I really enjoyed it? The whole concept was actually really clever, and I'm thinking of shamelessly stealing the plot for an RPG game now.
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Sep 28, 2015 11:31
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Pound_Coin posted:Anyone read any Ann Leckie(huge rear end spolier in plot summary)? It's got future humanity and AIs and is being tipped to be a worth successor to Banks. I've only read the first one so far and they're well written but I feel they are missing some of the charm(gravitas Might be a killer; The charm (and that's a perfect description) is really what makes Banks for me. Space Opera isn't that uncommon, but that... that touch and bit of amusement needs to be there, too.
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Sep 28, 2015 21:55
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And the ITG could by definition be described as 'falling outside the norm' by virtue of what they get up to. The majority of basic GSV are happy to just wander the galaxy, pursuing their own interests and not warranting having a story written about them at all. Basically, we only see the weirdos, because the regular Joes in Ship terms rarely get screen time.
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Oct 30, 2015 14:09
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The Algebraist I always feel gets a bum deal. Plot wise, it just dawdles about too much, which is a shame, because the main story is actually really quite excellent. It needed to be 'sharper' in general, because it's such a good book in the final third.
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Mar 15, 2016 10:12
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I tend to recommend release order, but walk into Consider Phlebas understanding you are most definitely not being given the full picture, and uncovering it through later books is half the fun. I feel like directing people to the later titles risks spoiling that discovery.
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Apr 28, 2016 08:05
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Peztopiary posted:The problem with that is Horza is dumb and wrong. The Culture has issues but none of them are the ones that Horza identifies. It's significantly better to come in after you understand how the Culture does what they do (and how that doesn't always work) than to have your introduction be Horza who doesn't even manage to be wrong most of the time. I think we're agreeing, just we have different views on whether that's a problem. I don't mind being waylaid by an untrustworthy narrator.
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Apr 28, 2016 09:05
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Toast Museum posted:I feel like this probably explains several restrictions Minds operate under. Thirded. There's no enforcement of the various rules beyond social stigma, and clearly even that's not a problem unless you choose to make it so. Minds sometimes choose to follow the rules purely because it's more interesting to operate under constraints than not to.
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May 5, 2016 08:58
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Peztopiary posted:I've decide the E-dust assassin was from some other group, programmed to think it was from the Culture. Contradictions eradicated, cognitive dissonance done away with. Ive always assumed it was 100% the Culture, it's us as readers gettIng the motive wrong. The reason they used the e-dust, the reason it was so gratuitously violent, was all to reinforce 'do not gently caress with the Culture'. They're not taking any pleasure in it - they're reinforcing a message in a visible, obvious way to a society that has clearly forgotten. Minds are 'past' vengeance, they don't need it, this was about a narrative. 'If you push us, no, we don't have any boundaries.' Viewed that way, there's much less of an issue. It's, weighed on balance, a choice of prudence.
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May 8, 2016 14:23
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#SpecialCircumstancesWasRight
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May 8, 2016 21:04
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It's rather the point, isn't it. The moment agree the premise that taking a life is a valid choice at some scale, we've agreed that it's OK, it's just a matter of opinion on what that scale should look like. And SC is just comprised of the people from Contact who have a different opinion on what that scale is.
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May 10, 2016 20:46
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MeLKoR posted:Saying "it's OK to kill people to protect others" is a completely different kettle of fish from "it's OK to kill people to conquer them and steal their stuff". Depends how valuable you find their lives, and how valuable you find their stuff.
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May 11, 2016 10:37
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sebmojo posted:Banks' profound hardon for torturing evil (seriously they're reeeeally evil, don't worry it's ok) people is his least attractive aspect as a writer IMO. It's one of his MOST attractive to me. "Just because I'm progressive and liberal doesn't mean I have a problem with loving you up if your poo poo is wrong, and no I don't care if you defend it as subjective." is delightful.
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Jun 12, 2016 11:46
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Groovelord Neato posted:He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. Said a borderline Nazi...
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Jun 12, 2016 13:25
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Just so I don't get tarred with the same brush, I don't have enough awareness or knowledge of the topic to have an opinion on the historic event in question, I was just citing an opinion on Banks in general. I'm just a big fan of the Don't Mistake My Niceness for Weakness/Don't gently caress With The Culture approach in general.
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Jun 12, 2016 17:01
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I almost wish this thread didn't exist because it keeps reminding me.  On the third Ancillary book now, it's not Banks, it's not even closeto Banks, but she's a good way ahead of a lot of the competition, and at least Ann Leckie has an interesting setting. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the fact Leckie is nowhere near Banks whilst still being quite good shows what a stellar talent he was.
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Sep 12, 2016 10:09
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The Name of the Wind thing (and it's been done to death both on SA and elsewhere) always boggles me, because despite it, loads, LOADS of people love the drat book, and I can't figure out why.
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Jan 31, 2017 21:43
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