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That's the The Algebraist which a lot of people aren't that keen on (although some really like it). If you want to give him another try I'd go with Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons or Player of Games as being more representative.
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Feb 11, 2009 16:27
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Away Message posted:Except for the Affront. Still well written but, gently caress those guys. Agreed, I actually think the concept he illustrated with these guys was quite poignant though. I found it hard to dislike them early on before the most brutal aspects of their nature became more and more apparent and dominant in their interactions. On the surface they almost seemed like a hybridisation of a rowdy college football team and colonial era noblemen and presented a fairly likeable rough around the edges "boys will be boys" sort of persona that almost gets one to look the other way regarding their actions. I certainly got suckered in by this a bit, which was clearly Banks' intention (he blatently states as much later on in the book) as he continually builds up their underlying cruelty culminating in the death of the loner on the Culture storage base. Its a pretty good if overly extreme analogy to real life situations such as cult of personality/ideology leadership/nations where one gets distracted by whats seen on the surface rather than focusing on their actual actions and their resulting impact.
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Feb 12, 2009 05:37
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Pompous Rhombus posted:The Algebraist was good but not great: some cool concepts, but the over-the-top, mustache-twirling villain dragged it down, /spoiler]. I read it as him consciously aping an over the top villain and using it as a guide for his behaviour - he chose his name for associations etc. He was cognizant that treating the dwellers the way he did was probably not going to be productive, but decided that full blown supervilliany might produce results. He was ultimately cynical enough to abandon his Big Dumb Object when the Summed Fleet came hammering into the system. Entropic posted:I keep meaning to write it up and post it in LF or something. Please do this.
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Feb 13, 2009 04:20
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I first heard about the Culture series several years ago, and was upset that they were all out of print. So I downloaded ebooks of them, read a few, and loved them. Then about 6 months ago I was in a bookstore and saw Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, and Use of Weapons on a shelf. I drat near poo poo myself in glee, and snagged them all right then. I also got The Algebraist just for kicks. I just started reading Use of Weapons again. 
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Feb 14, 2009 02:11
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Someone please take Use of Weapons apart into separate chapters, rearrange them into chronological order and stick them back together. Chop chop, motherfuckers!
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Feb 14, 2009 12:04
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Schizo posted:Then about 6 months ago I was in a bookstore and saw Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, and Use of Weapons on a shelf. I drat near poo poo myself in glee, and snagged them all right then. I also got The Algebraist just for kicks. Yeah, when it got close to when Matter was coming out his older ones starting getting stocked in US stores again. For someone new to the Culture series I think Look to Windward or Player of Games is a good place to start.
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Feb 14, 2009 20:05
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Megazver posted:Someone please take Use of Weapons apart into separate chapters, rearrange them into chronological order and stick them back together. It's not that complicated. You just pull out the roman numeraled ones, reverse them, and put them at the beginning. book order Chronological order: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII Prologue One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen Epilogue States of War Slight Mechanical Destruction ...I think. I don't have a copy handy so I'm not absolutely sure about where the prologue and epilogue go. I know the poem at the beginning is supposed to be written like a hundred years after everything else though. Actually reading it in that order would give you all the huge spoilers at the beginning though. Entropic fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Feb 14, 2009 |
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Feb 14, 2009 21:57
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Entropic posted:It's not that complicated. You just pull out the roman numeraled ones, reverse them, and put them at the beginning. I think I'm actually going to do this. Just 'cause I can. And I've read it once already and while I enjoyed it I was left with a nagging feeling that all the structural mindfuckery wasn't actually necessary. I guess I will find out.
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Feb 15, 2009 08:39
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Megazver posted:I think I'm actually going to do this. Just 'cause I can. He wrote about that specifically somewhere. If I'm not completely crazy, a friend suggested he swap the chapters around. Fake Edit from Wikipedia: quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_Weapons Pretty cool that he had the idea in place pre-culture.
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Feb 16, 2009 16:20
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Big fan of Iain Banks. The Wasp Factory, Complicity, Use of Weapons and Consider Phlebas are my favourites. Love the epic scope of his sci-fi, he's got some great ideas. The Lazy Gun in Against A Dark Background is cool, its effects when fired at a target are unpredictable, it might crush someone with an anchor, summon a tidal wave, or destroy a city with a comet. Definite Douglas Adams influence there, I reckon.
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Feb 16, 2009 18:14
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Im huge Banks fan, with the M and not, but I have to say im not really enoying Matter. I quit half way through it though i'll probably try again. Its a bit like inversions in that the focus is a 'non-involved' but they do vauguely know about the culture. It seems to be to much of a comedy, I prefer the dark sci-fi stuff banks makes.
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Feb 21, 2009 17:39
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I liked the The Algebraist it was different. tried to read look to windward but couldnt finish it.
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Feb 21, 2009 18:37
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Graviton v2 posted:Im huge Banks fan, with the M and not, but I have to say im not really enoying Matter. I quit half way through it though i'll probably try again. Its a bit like inversions in that the focus is a 'non-involved' but they do vauguely know about the culture. It seems to be to much of a comedy, I prefer the dark sci-fi stuff banks makes. I'd say Matter is most definitely one of the weakest of the Culture novels. I just finished it last week and was pretty disappointed. Just didn't seem to have the magic of his other novels, although the Morthenveld home system was pretty interesting. The ending was rather lackluster and it just felt like the whole story meandered in space for too long. Could have easily been 100pgs shorter I felt.
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Feb 22, 2009 00:19
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WE DOIN IT NOW posted:I'd say Matter is most definitely one of the weakest of the Culture novels. I just finished it last week and was pretty disappointed. Just didn't seem to have the magic of his other novels, although the Morthenveld home system was pretty interesting. The ending was rather lackluster and it just felt like the whole story meandered in space for too long. Could have easily been 100pgs shorter I felt.
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Feb 22, 2009 02:09
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I love Banks, I prefer the M version though. I've read The Bridge (excellent mind-gently caress), The Business (eh, it was OK. Didn't really go anywhere), Canal Dreams (boring and pointless), The Steep Approach to Garbadale (I only liked it because I have a lost love named Sophie  otherwise it would have been pointless, and Alban was such a worthless pussy and Banks's author mouthpiece political bollocks and  Banks signed my copy, though)Use of Weapons, Player of Games, Against a Dark Background, The Algebraist are all exceptional. Excession was very good, Inversions was OK. I liked it when I met Banks at a signing and he told the story of how he asked one of his friends what he thought of the TV serialisation of Crow Road and the guy said "Oh aye, it was goood, but it felt a bit like an overlong episode of Taggart." 
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Feb 22, 2009 23:18
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HoldYourFire posted:otherwise it would have been pointless, and Alban was such a worthless pussy and Banks's author mouthpiece political bollocks I did like that he seemed able to write about computer games without coming across as a clueless old fogey though, which is something most authors, even most SF authors, can't seem to manage (especially when they're playing at futurism (Notable exception: Charlie Stross.)). Then again, I heard somewhere that he missed his deadline for Garbadale because he was addicted to Civilization IV. "Research", heh.
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Feb 23, 2009 00:54
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I have to really recommend Against a Dark Background. By far my favorite Iain Banks book, and for me the next best SF book after Gene Wolfs "The Book of the New Sun" tetralogy and Dan Simmons "Hyperion" books. Someone wrote here that Against a Dark Background has a sad and gloomy mood to it, but I found it quite to the contrary a very sleek and fast paced. Like an adventure novel for a mature audience.
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Feb 23, 2009 08:35
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DeusEx posted:I have to really recommend Against a Dark Background. By far my favorite Iain Banks book, and for me the next best SF book after Gene Wolfs "The Book of the New Sun" tetralogy and Dan Simmons "Hyperion" books. I wrote that. I have a thing against every single character dying, though, so we can blame that.
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Feb 23, 2009 08:53
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I found a used copy of The Algebraist this weekend. Maybe it was this thread. Can someone start a thread on autographed Cormac Mccarthy books next? 
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Feb 23, 2009 16:01
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darkgray posted:I wrote that. I have a thing against every single character dying, though, so we can blame that. The fact that Sharrow nearly had sex with her own son was pretty creepy.
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Feb 23, 2009 22:00
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darkgray posted:I wrote that. I have a thing against every single character dying, though, so we can blame that. (edit) everybody loving dying at the end didn't help either. Still it's a pretty fun read. Away Message fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Feb 23, 2009 |
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Feb 23, 2009 23:34
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Posting to point out that I just finished Against a Dark Background again, because of this thread, and now I'm depressed.
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Feb 27, 2009 03:48
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Reading Banks for the first time, Use of Weapons, and the order of the book is seriously sapping my enjoyment. I hate having a pretty interesting narrative completely and frequently interrupted by a little disjointed historical scene from Zak's life. I also feel completely in the dark regarding character's motivations and why they act the way they do. Zakalwe in particular seems the most schizophrenic, especially with the revelations about his past. I enjoy the premise of the book and find it very original. To me the Culture like a Star Trek liberal utopia taken to the absolute extreme, yet it meddles and engages in cultural imperialism to an extent unimagined even by the people who complain about such things today. It's a fascinating yet entirely believable contradiction. I'll finish the book, but unless the necessity of the unique chronological order becomes abundantly clear in the climax, or the characters start making more sense, I probably won't any further into this author.
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Feb 28, 2009 00:09
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The Bramble posted:Reading Banks for the first time, Use of Weapons...  . So yes, it's worth sticking with.The other Culture novels are for the most part more conventionally structured. I'm sure that Banks once said somewhere that he originally wrote Use Of Weapons in chronological order and thought it was lacking, so rewrote it with the forwards/backwards structure to put the key moment at the end.
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Feb 28, 2009 00:24
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Do any of Banks' books have satisfying endings? So far I've read The Wasp Factory, Consider Phlebas, The Algebraist, and Excession, and none of them have had strong endings. The ride is awesome while it lasts but then he just kind of throws everything out the window and decides the story is finished. I can go into specifics on why I didn't like the endings of those books, but I get the impression others were similarly put off by the end of The Algebraist, for example. And on another note, what are everyone's favourite Banks action scenes? Consider Phlebas: The main characters are on a ringworld and land on a giant drifting super cruise ship in the fog to steal a laser cannon for their ship. The giant cruise ship slams its billions of tonnes into an even more gigantic iceberg causing it to fold up like an accordion as the main character runs away with his shipmates to leap into a shuttle, leaving a guy behind. The guy who was left behind has a PERSONAL NUKE and he goes nuts trying to kill everyone by setting it off. The Algebraist: The sailing races on the gas giant with the Dwellers. The betrayal with nano machines, followed by The Major falling into the gas giant and firing upwards before being blasted out of her suit and sliced in half. Then the emergence of the massive Dweller fleet out of the stormwalls to destroy the stupid humans, the rising of the Deniable and the annihilation of an entire enemy fleet, the Dwellers joyfully betting on the spectacle. Hilarious and gripping stuff.
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Feb 28, 2009 00:36
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Posting one more time to mention how much I love the names of the Culture ships. The Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival Ethics Gradient Meatfucker Steely Glint Problem Child Fate Amenable to Change
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Feb 28, 2009 00:45
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Turpitude posted:Do any of Banks' books have satisfying endings? So far I've read The Wasp Factory, Consider Phlebas, The Algebraist, and Excession, and none of them have had strong endings. The ride is awesome while it lasts but then he just kind of throws everything out the window and decides the story is finished. I can go into specifics on why I didn't like the endings of those books, but I get the impression others were similarly put off by the end of The Algebraist, for example. I thought Look to Windward wrapped itself up pretty satisfyingly. Especially for Masaq Hub and Quillen. Turpitude posted:Posting one more time to mention how much I love the names of the Culture ships.  Other favourites: The Psychopath-class ROU Frank Exchange Of Views The GCU Poke It With A Stick The GCU You Would If You Really Loved Me The GOU I Said I've Got A Big Stick The GSV What Are The Civilian Applications? And then of course there's the whole "gravitas" running joke... edit: Wikipedia is good for something: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_(The_Culture) Entropic fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Feb 28, 2009 |
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Feb 28, 2009 01:37
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Turpitude posted:Do any of Banks' books have satisfying endings? So far I've read The Wasp Factory, Consider Phlebas, The Algebraist, and Excession, and none of them have had strong endings. The ride is awesome while it lasts but then he just kind of throws everything out the window and decides the story is finished. I can go into specifics on why I didn't like the endings of those books, but I get the impression others were similarly put off by the end of The Algebraist, for example. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember thinking The Algebraist had a decent ending. Banks has said it was written as the first book of a possible trilogy. Excession's was kind of lame, but I thought The Wasp Factory was okay (again, it's been a while). Use of Weapons has one of the most endings of a book I've read, genre or otherwise. Like Entropic said, Look to Windward wraps itself up pretty well. My main beef with Banks is that most books of his (that I've read so far) involve A DARK SECRET and it gets to be a little cliche, like watching an M. Night Shayamalan movie and waiting for the inevitable twist.
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Feb 28, 2009 20:31
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Pompous Rhombus posted:It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember thinking The Algebraist had a decent ending. Banks has said it was written as the first book of a possible trilogy. He does seem to have a thing for Terrible Dark Family Secrets (see: Garbadale, Walking on Glass, Use of Weapons, The Wasp Factory, probably others I haven't read yet...) but his "twist endings" generally manage to hold up fairly well without feeling like gimmicks. Most of his books give the reader a sense of "I wonder how all this is going to tie together?" rather than "When's the crazy random twist going to show up?". I appreciate how he can make a lot of disparate threads come together in a way that doesn't seem forced, particularly in his early books. He's definitely got his tropes. Dude likes his mega-scale architecture and big medievalish castles with modern amenities. Speaking of which, I just finished Walking On Glass and quite enjoyed it. It definitely feels like a young writer's book though, like he wasn't as sure of his writing style. It felt like he led the reader by the hand a bit too much, explicitly spelling out things that I'd already figured out, like the planet name "Dirt" being a bad translation of "Earth". I was surprised at how closely the three storylines actually fit together. He really was writing SF thinly disguised as regular fiction back then. Entropic fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Feb 28, 2009 |
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Feb 28, 2009 20:55
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Entropic posted:Other favourites:
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Feb 28, 2009 23:53
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Morlock posted:Some friends and I had a "What would you call yourself if you were a Culture ship?" drunken conversation years ago, and I'm still proud of declaring myself the Adequately Explained By Stupidity. I am going to remember this, and one day, post the results. Also, that is an amazing name for a Culture Ship, although may be more fitting for an orbital with a truly strange design.
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Mar 1, 2009 07:30
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narfanator posted:I am going to remember this, and one day, post the results. And no, I'm definitely a GCU. The full quote is: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
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Mar 1, 2009 14:14
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Turpitude posted:Do any of Banks' books have satisfying endings? So far I've read The Wasp Factory, Consider Phlebas, The Algebraist, and Excession, and none of them have had strong endings. The ride is awesome while it lasts but then he just kind of throws everything out the window and decides the story is finished. I can go into specifics on why I didn't like the endings of those books, but I get the impression others were similarly put off by the end of The Algebraist, for example. I think several of his books including a couple you've mentioned here have this kind of "shaggy dog" style ending that some people don't like. I find them satisfying because he does them really well. I've always had trouble explaining what I mean though. It's like the book will have a central plot that acts as a catalyst for a lot of side stories. All the side stories will end up coming together and being ties up in a satisfactory manner, but then the main plot will have an anticlimactic ending. I think Excession is the best example of this, Feersum Endjin is another one. Something like Excession improved a lot on the second reading for me. Once I know that the Excession itself is only really a catalyst, and nothing more, for the rest of the story it beame a lot more enjoyable for me. I think it leads to a situation whee the climax of the novel occurs before the main plot is resolved. This gives the impression of "throw everything out the window" but actually everything is nicely wrapped up an reached a satisfactory conclusion... and then there is a conclusion to the catalyst plot, which as a result makes the ending appear rushed and anti-climactic. I think the way this is done is a very intentional literary device and I absolutely understand why some people don't like it. I don't like it all the time, the Algebraist is one of my least favourite Banks books because I think he totally blows the ending and fails to do what he has done well in the past. Not all his books are like this though. And on another note, what are everyone's favourite Banks action scenes? Absolutely the Consider Phlebas one you posted. I can think of a few other's but that's a stand-out. Against a Dark Background has some crazy over-the-top action of a similar kind. Also in Excession when Grey Area/Meat Fucker shows up with it's own personal fleet of like 50,000 ships.
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Mar 1, 2009 15:21
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I came up with: GCU Plausible Deniability GSV Militant Hedonist GCU Tenuous Analogy GCU Abort, Retry, Fail GOU My Bad GSV None Of Them Knew They Were Robots ROU Never Tell Me The Odds I keep wishing I'd been into Iain Banks when I was choosing a username. As for great action sequences, that's one of the things Matter did right. The scene in the first chapter where Djan Seriy and her drone casually decimate an army is great.
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Mar 1, 2009 16:24
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My favourite action scene, Player of games The final showdown on the firestorm planet, with the fires reaching the fortress, the game of Azad culminating in mass suicide and the Culture ship dropping in to save Gurgeh at the same time
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Mar 1, 2009 22:19
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Heads up, UK goons - radio 4's airing State of the Art this week. Get yer arse over to iplayer.
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Mar 6, 2009 01:15
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Hello Pity posted:Also in Excession when Grey Area/Meat Fucker shows up with it's own personal fleet of like 50,000 ships. You misremember, it's Sleeper Service. 
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Mar 6, 2009 02:35
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Know what bugged me about the end of Matter? Banks makes a big deal about the protagonist dying in a big ball of sacrificial glory, but there was a scene earlier in the book talking about the importance of Special Circumstances operatives backing themselves up. So she didn't die, and she didn't sacrifice gently caress all. And then in the next scene, the other two major players (forgive my poor memory) are acting all loving sad about her being gone. Or did I misinterpret something? I still loved the book however.
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Mar 6, 2009 03:19
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lilbean posted:Know what bugged me about the end of Matter? Banks makes a big deal about the protagonist dying in a big ball of sacrificial glory, but there was a scene earlier in the book talking about the importance of Special Circumstances operatives backing themselves up. So she didn't die, and she didn't sacrifice gently caress all. And then in the next scene, the other two major players (forgive my poor memory) are acting all loving sad about her being gone. Well, Djan Seriy had a backup, but her brothers sure as hell didn't, and basically her whole family and everyone she knew had been taken out by the end, so there wouldn't really be much for her SC duplicate to come back for.
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Mar 6, 2009 03:32
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Fishbulbz posted:You misremember, it's Sleeper Service. This is a good thing as my faulty memory gives me an excuse to read Excession again.
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Mar 6, 2009 11:46
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