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Entropic posted:The only Banks book where I really had that problem was Inversions. Once you figure out that Doctor Vosill is a special circumstances agent (which is obvious from the beginning if you noticed that it a says "A Culture Novel" on the cover) you immediately lose any sense of possible danger for her. In some of the other books, most notably Use of Weapons, the characters may be for-all-intents-and-purposes physically immortal but they can still be emotionally destroyed. In Inversions though, you don't ever really get inside the heads of the Culture characters so there isn't even that possibility. There was still UrLeyn/DeWar/Perrund's story. And I still found Vosill's story fairly entertaining. I honestly rather liked Matter, although I will agree it dragged once they got to space. And the Morthanveld were certainly interesting.
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May 27, 2009 00:04
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Chiming in to that that I, too, loved Matter and while the ending did indeed feel rushed, I think it's a relatively minor flaw in an otherwise great book.
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Feb 24, 2010 04:15
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Flipswitch posted:Yup, that's Look to Windward. Which is easily my favourite out of the lot simply for the character interaction scenes on the Orbital. That said, I think my least favorite was Consider Phlebas - which is a shame because I felt like there was a really interesting story int here trying to get told, but that it kept getting caught up in sidetracking "filler."
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Aug 7, 2010 04:25
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I thought the Pre-Melding Plague stuff we saw in The Prefect was a lot like a dark, slightly less advanced, gothic take on the Culture.
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Feb 15, 2011 16:35
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I also really enjoyed Matter and would like to see a follow-up of some sort. I will, though, concede that it dragged a bit in places, but I still liked it.
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Oct 12, 2011 20:04
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If I'm not mistaken Banks had said - and the texts make it fairly clear as well - that all the Culture books are in chronological order. So while the exact frame of time between stories may - and does - vary, each book does in fact take place after the one preceding. Barring, I suppose, possibly some of the out-of-order parts of Use of Weapons.
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Sep 6, 2013 15:58
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The Bliterator is Surface Detail, not Matter. Surface Detail, unsurprisingly, deals a fair bit with death and mind-states. There's the Chay character, after all.
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Jan 14, 2014 19:12
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Regarding Inversions chat; I have no idea why, let alone any ability to articulate it, but for some reason I really like Inversions. Wasn't there an earlier edition of the book that had some manner of preface that more explicitly reveals it as part of the Culture setting?
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Mar 19, 2014 18:45
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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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Strategic Tea posted:You still have to respect Horza a little, Empathize with stupidity and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot. 
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Apr 28, 2016 23:45
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There's also the Shellworld builders and the Iln in Matter - and hell the whole thrust/theme of Matter.
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Dec 22, 2016 01:00
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