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MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Ratios and Tendency posted:

Ok, so Consider Phlebas was another TBB recommendation bust. I was hoping for insightful, well executed hard sci-fi and instead got a rather dull and aimless space-opera with weak characterization.

Personally I'm not that much into Consider Phlebas myself, my favorite part of the Culture is the scheming and the Minds and there's very little about them in CP.
I'd give Player of Games for the former and Excession for the latter.

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MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Entropic posted:

Use of Weapons, Look to Windward, and the short story collection State of the Art are the cream of the Culture crop.

Oh god, I absolutely hated State of the Art, to me it read like bad fan fiction, specially the one about Earth that gave me such a strong "Galactica Discovers Earth" vibe that I almost expected Boxey to show up at some point.

MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 00:48 on May 5, 2010

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Kire posted:

Yeah I'm thinking of Excession, Consider Phlebas (but I read that quite a while ago, maybe I'm thinking of an annoying drone?) and Player of Games.
Player of Games has a drone, but all Culture drones are sentient, Consider Phlebas (as far as I recall) has neither.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Kire posted:

Simmon's books obviously are not utopias, but wow I don't know how you think the Culture isn't the greatest thing ever. Can you think of something more utopic than the Culture? I can't. I was going to say "maybe a hedonistic VR" but you can do that in the Culture anytime you want. What makes you think it's ambiguous?

The Culture is certainly a utopia to live in but SC certainly does some seriously questionable poo poo. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

This isn't to say that the final result isn't a net positive but from the glimpses we are given it sure seems that a lot of eggs get broken spreading this utopian omelet.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Umiapik posted:

One thing that I think causes Banks some difficulty with the Culture novels is that the galaxy he portrays is normally just so drat safe. Sure, there's massively advanced alien species all over the place but they're generally reasonable types who all get along together and do their best to help out less developed civilizations. It's almost impossible for anything really bad to happen and as soon as it does, the Galactic emergency services are on the scene, putting sticking plasters on grazed knees etc.

I don't get that at all, the galaxy is safe if you are in the Culture or in a similar power group but probably most of the people in the galaxy live under the shadow of having SC stepping in and lifting them up or other nastier groups just doing as they please.

It's just that at least with SC as you lie in the dirt feeling your life blood seep out of you you have the comfort of knowing that in the end it's (statistically) for the best.
Or you would know if you knew what hit you.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

andrew smash posted:

Apparently if a person went out of their way to completely and irrevocably murder another culture citizen beyond the point where they could be remade, the murderer would be a social pariah but that's about it.

He'd also have a drone permanently assigned to monitoring him.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

andrew smash posted:

Sucks for the drone.

I don't know, judging by the personality of the drones in the stories they seem very sarcastic. I bet the drone would have a blast enacting "ceiling drone is watching you take a dump" all the time just knowing it was driving the person nuts.

Seriously, no privacy ever again while you live is actually kind of a brutal punishment if you think about it. I'd rather do some years of jail time and get it done with.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Since we are pimping non-FTL novels "A Deepness in the Sky" is pretty great in that it describes how a culture (no pun intended) of slower than light travel merchants arose.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
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.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

General Battuta posted:

Player of Games is a much happier book, I would definitely recommend reading it - not just because it's a more enjoyable read, but because it'll help cheer up your perception of the whole Culture universe.

At least until everything goes to hell in a handbasket, but yeah I guess it's an happy ending in a way.

Anyway, definitely read the rest of the Culture books Krinkle, Consider Phlebas is the weakest of the lot (not counting State of the Art which isn't a novel anyway).

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Gravitas Shortfall posted:

Player of Games definitely has a happy ending.

Gurgeh grows and matures as a person, an evil empire is bought down, a drone is revealed as being totally awesome

Definitely happy in the long run, I mean... probably. In the immediate future the Azadians are going to go through a civil war that's probably going to rip their empire apart so for the people that'll have to live it through things probably won't be all that happy.
See also: Chelgrians; Iraq; etc
.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
I don't know how you measure artistic relevance but I can tell you that reading it in the wake of Player of Games and Use of Weapons left me completely underwhelmed.
My reactions to the various short stories oscillated between dislike and actual hate of the setting and tone. Thank god I didn't read it immediately after Consider Phlebas or I'd have probably given up on the whole Culture series right there and then.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

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.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Lasting Damage posted:

I was initially. Again, I've come to really like the book. As in its one of my favorites along with Look to Windward and Use of Weapons. What I mean by expectations is that it really isn't about the Excession, the conspiracy, the war, or any of the grand scale scheming, but just Genar-Hofoen and Dajeil. I don't think most people are expecting that, or satisfied with it.

I don't know, most people seem to sum up the book with "I came for the Excession, I staid for the Minds".
We get a wonderful insight into the inner life of the Minds and for em it really enriched the whole series.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Barry Foster posted:

Frankly, this is my big problem with the Culture. I really think entities of such astounding power should comport themselves with a little more gravitas.

It would be quite easy to slide into a "god emperor" type of situation where the humans are little more than ants. Not that they aren't, but I kind of like the idea that these incredibly powered entities are above that sort of thing and just want to chill and interact with lesser creatures. Kind of like herding sapient cats and laughing at their antics.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Yeah, horrifyingly terrible as it might turn out when things go wrong on occasion the alternative of simply doing nothing with the power they have while minor races get their asses handed over to them or witnessing the horrible treatment the lower classes get from the top of their safe and comfortable ivory GSVs like the ZE chose to do seems far worse from an ethical point of view.
I bet the ZE spend half of their time wringing their hands and saying to whoever will listen to them "why can't we all just get along :ohdear:".

Lesser of two evils and all that.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Definitely go with Player of Games next and then maybe Look to Windward.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
So is Inversions and Player of Games although in the later case Gurgeh is unaware of it.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

He Who Dares posted:

I'm just hoping that Banks finds a way to continue with the universe after his passing, either by whipping some kind of "Guide for the Culture Universe" type thing, or by finding another author to continue after him. The Culture universe is too fantastic, I need more of it!

Has Dune taught us nothing? :argh:

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

fookolt posted:

China Mieville comes to mind when it comes to the politics of The Culture series. That would be amazing.

China Mieville is my favorite author but that wouldn't be The Culture.

e: He could do a Zetetic Elench sort of spin-off in a Culture inspired universe maybe?

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
In Player of Games didn't the ship that took Gurgeh to Azad have an avatar?

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Strawman posted:

You could just shoot 2 different versions of the Elethiomel scenes with the actors switching roles after the reveal.

Or just have a different actor from both Elethiomel and Zakalwe's flashbacks and attribute it to the extensive surgery he has undergone since joining the Culture. Not that I get all the love for Use of Weapons, apart from the "shocking twist" (which is more than expected nowadays and only works the first time anyway) it's not that interesting and I saw that twist coming a mile away.

My favorite Culture book is Player of Games but given the extensive role Azad plays in the story I think Surface Detail would probably work the best as an adaptation.

MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Nov 29, 2013

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Barry Foster posted:

Give The Player of Games a go next. I really do think it's the best intro to the Culture series.

I'm a rare dissenter in that I don't think Use of Weapons should be read first. But I do think that the last three books should be read last, in order, preferably.

I wholeheartedly second this.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Another thing that might put some people off the Culture books is that most of the time the protagonist of the story ends up not playing a significant role in the unfolding of events. That must be especially jarring for someone starting with Use of Weapons because you miss a lot of subtlety of what is going on. The Minds are the kind of entity that would carefully analyze the cost/benefit of wiping out the political leaders of a planet and if it would be beneficial in the long run they'd calculate where to drop a butterfly so that it's wings will eventually cause a hurricane that will wipe out the capital city and the leaders along with it.

Humans are at best beloved pets to taken care of and cherished and worst tools/weapons to be used for the greater good. In any case humans are always out of their depth and basically stumble along for the ride, trying to put the pieces together and make sense of anything that is happening around them, same as the reader.

And the thing is that this is the closest to utopia you could get.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Strategic Tea posted:

I wouldn't say humans are pets. They aren't solely around for the Minds' entertainment and their right to live as equally as possible is generally strongly upheld. The Sleeper Service basically plays the role of a (manipulative, interfering) friend. Hub from LTW dies clinging to a human-intelligence being for solace.

The statistically tiny number of humans in Consider Phlebas that can work as something approaching equals are happily included. The thing is, space, and the kinds of empires that could fill it, are just too big. It's not that the Minds look down on us as subservient pets - they're just more capable in every way, and better suited to the world the Culture inhabits. I guess what I'm saying is that humans aren't really treated as lesser - they simply can't escape, especially in an anarchy, the fact that their creations are better than them.

I didn't mean pets in a deprecating way. It's just that humans are so limited that from the point of view of the Minds we are less intelligent than cats are, compared to people. They obviously value our company as sentient beings otherwise they wouldn't bother with us, and they respect our will and opinions otherwise we'd have no input at all but the fact remains that due to our physical limitations we are mostly tagging along for the ride. Also, being so vastly superior the Minds can largely get away with grooming humans by any means including deception (though not outright lies) into wanting whatever the Minds figured out is best.


quote:

Honestly, I think the biggest conceit of the setting is that humans and drones haven't simply upgraded themselves to be on the level of Minds. But then we'd have a totally different set of novels about far distant transhumanism, so :shrug:
Isn't there a faction in Excession that promotes integrating humans into a collective mind? Apart from something like that which would cost you at least a part of your individuality there is simply no way for a human or a drone to match the hardware capacity behind the Minds. The only thing I find unrealistic is that I think most people would overwhelmingly choose immortality, even if only as a digital entity, rather than voluntarily die after a few hundred years.

MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Dec 3, 2013

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
On the other hand didn't someone mention in a book how the top tier civilizations have more or less the same kind of tech? Makes sense that at the end of the search for the most powerful weapons everybody would reach the same things.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Toast Museum posted:

Speaking of Brin, I've heard good things about the Uplift series, but I found the first book really clunky, and the opening chapters of the second book did even less for me. Does the series get a lot better later, or is Brin just not for me?

Puny humans allied with a couple of loyal uplifted species fighting to survive in an universe that is almost 100% united against them because they threaten the existing social order is a great premise for a space opera but it was poorly executed.
They're not bad but they won't rock your world either. Kind of meh, really.


Re someone else writing The Culture... Please, don't. I think Banks did a great job exploring the consequences certain future technologies would have for that society, the only thing I can think he didn't fully cover so well were the fatalism\ennui that would accompany something like teleportation\backups and maybe how digitized human hive consciousness that could rival the power of the Minds. There really isn't anything that needs to be explored so it would boil down to fan fiction even if it was good fan fiction.
The Culture is my favorite SC series, I'd love if Banks were around to give us 2 or 10 more books but he's gone for the great Simulation in the sky and this is what he left us with.

MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Sep 20, 2014

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

GenVec posted:

I'd say it takes more mental jujitsu to imagine the book as clear cut than to acknowledge the ambiguities surrounding the conclusion. We have very strong evidence that there was a third faction enabling the Chelgrians to carry out their plot. We know they were actively taking steps to ensure they weren't being tracked - as Masaq states that SC was unable to follow the source of the wormholes. We also have the statement by Masaq that it feels that a rogue group of Minds might have been behind it.

Am I mixing two different books or weren't the Chelgrians in touch with a faction of their society that Sublimed?

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Avulsion posted:

Excession. It's all about Minds plotting and scheming and meddling. Oh and there's the manifestation of an extra-dimensional entity that threatens to suborn all sentient life in a large part of the universe for some incomprehensible and unknowable purpose, but it's not really important.

Yeah, if you like the Minds you'll love Excession. Look to Windward also gives some insight into how\why the Minds view their relationship with humans.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Gravitas Shortfall posted:

ROU Gone Fission

ROU Fission: Impossible

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Maybe Surface Detail would appeal to someone with a more religious sensibility?

MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jan 22, 2015

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

MikeJF posted:

He said he wants stuff less rapey.

:thejoke:

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
I dunno, the Culture seems to believe they have sublimed, I took that at face value to mean that when they sublimed they used their new power to create (or take over) a virtual afterlife for their species.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
I hold Excession, Look to Windward and Player of Games roughly in equal esteem though they are very different books. The only problems I see starting with Excession are that you'll lose on a lot of subtle things because you are unfamiliar with the setting and that, not having read other novels before, you might not fully appreciate the perspective of Minds as much.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Snapchat A Titty posted:

Horza is an idealist who believes so much in his cause that any means justify the cause. The cause being of course the destruction or at least alteration of the Culture. So he's aligned with their enemy even though they're at the very least equally bad, just in other, different ways. He's a single issue voter who doesn't care if his world burns, as long as he gets to have his say if only for a moment.

Horza lives in a civilized society which he despises for it's materialism so he decides to tag along with the Iridan State of Milky Way and Magellan because "those guys are keeping it real".

Nobody is the villain of their own story so we see that from his point of view he thinks he's doing good. But he's just like all other deluded idiots that want to force everyone around them to "keep it real" and "go back to our roots".

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
The Minds are like people ladies that like to have a bunch of pets around because they are cute and do funny antics and go out of their way to keep the pets happy in any way they can. When they want to do something because they do know best they go to the trouble of convincing the pets of the merit of their actions. They didn't have to put up with any of this if they were authoritarian, their word would be law and they could wipe us out in the blink of an eye if they felt like it. We're nowhere near the power dynamic that would be needed for an authoritarian relationship, it's like humans being authoritarian with rats.

It's like the Culture created their own cat ladies and made toxoplasmosis part of their DNA from the get-go. They created gods as they would wish gods would be.

MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 16:17 on May 3, 2016

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Strategic Tea posted:

I'm not sure all or even most minds hold humans in the kind of benevolent contempt that we would have for a pet. Lots seem to cultivate genuine friendships with human and drones. There's even the one from Look to Windward who more or less begs a primitive human-equivalent to keep it company as it dies, from one old soldier to another.

I mentioned a cats/pets relationship due to the power imbalance, there is a fundamental difference in that cats/pets aren't sentient so you won't get the same treatment you give a cat. I have no doubt that the Minds enjoy the friendship of humans and drones but even so we aren't equals in any sense. They are literally gods, much more powerful that any gods ancient humans invented.
The fact that they cultivate our friendship despite our limitations is what I think Banks did best with the Minds. If you were a god why wouldn't you surround yourself by a horde of fragile mortal creatures and try to help them out? It would cost you nothing, time would not be an issue to you, you would have all the power in the relationship if you had to exert it and you would get a legion of creatures looking up to you. If even us humans can derive so much enjoyment and love interacting with non-sentient creatures with our limited powers imagine if we had the power of Minds. At the very least we'd uplift them a la David Brin.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
drat imperialists messing up with the rape and torture culture of poor Azad, where is this galaxy coming to.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

C'mon, are you implying that Bush was a Mind?

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MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Gravitas Shortfall posted:

Probably one of the most hosed up things a Mind has ever done, imo.

It had it coming. And I'm with the Meat Fucker, nazi lizards shouldn't get to die peacefully in bed after genociding scaly jews. It's a dirty job but someone has got to do it.

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