― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 13:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 13:19 (seventeen years ago) link
Is it really as bad as stated upthread?
― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 13:28 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm surprised I didn't write more on this thread first time round. Whit was the first one I read, and I liked it, even though it feels like an easy read without that much content. I loved The Bridge and Espedair Street, but couldn't get into Song Of Stone (despite it being the one where the BDSM leanings I'm sure he has are most visible). The Business is rubbish, but enjoyable nevertheless - when I read the synopsis I thought that a very good book could have been made from it, but The Business isn't it.
As for the sci-fi, the first one I read was Player Of Games, and - as someone who isn't a big sci-fi reader - I thought it was very good indeed. To be honest I can't remember which of the sci-fi books I have and haven't read - Feersum Endjinn, definitely, and the one with the giant flying whale creatures (Use Of Weapons?). Apart from Player Of Games, their names seem to blend into one.
it started a bit like a Belle and Sebastian song in prose
Pointless trivia moment: when Radio 4 adapted Espedair Street, back around 1997-8, the vocalist they used for Frozen Gold's songs was Monica Queen, B&S's guest vocalist on Lazy Line Painter Jane.
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 13:29 (seventeen years ago) link
> I think he's only publishes The Algebraist (sci-fi) since Dead Air, which is typically full of great crazy ideas, but a little leaden in pace.
have just read the algebraist (and have just restarted ...Dark Background, signed and dated copy, watford 1995). after 4 or so years of thinking that alastair reynolds writes a bit like iain m banks i now think that iain m banks writes a bit like alastair reynolds (AR is big on the acceleration / deceleration required for space travel, huge space travel epics, a lot like the algebraist)
(there's also been a small book on whisky since dead air, but that's it, i think. that, dead air and the business are the only things i haven't read)
first line of wasp factory is about checking the sacrifice poles.
― Koogy Yonderboy (koogs), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 13:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― treefell (treefell), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:43 (seventeen years ago) link
felt the same about the algebraist tbh.
― Koogy Yonderboy (koogs), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:48 (seventeen years ago) link
Look to Phlebas is a nice easy romp with a dark ending.
Player of Games is the 1st Culture book he wrote, not the 1st published though.
Most of the Culture novel are about how a supposed fully democractic utopia has to have a dark side in order to survive. All books WILL contain a torture sequence or a reference to torture.
― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost - exactly.
― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 16:03 (seventeen years ago) link
As I said above, I'm sure IMB is a bit kinky. Doesn't Look To Windward have a brief sentence about the main protagonist's surprised joy when his wife introduced him to bondage?
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 16:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 16:51 (seventeen years ago) link
SC are the "dark side" the people that allow the vast majority of the Culture to live in a peaceful utopia.
― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 17:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link
is the new one (steep approach to garbadale) any good? all amazon reviews seem to suggest it is a rehash of the crow road (which I still haven't read).
― akm, Saturday, 26 May 2007 21:09 (sixteen years ago) link
new Culture book out in 3 weeks time! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matter-Iain-M-Banks/dp/1841494178/
― zappi, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 17:44 (sixteen years ago) link
i couldn't finish the crow road, it was interminably meandering and dull
― akm, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 17:59 (sixteen years ago) link
ooh. psyched!
agree on crow road. much of the non-M. stuff is really half-baked. there are obv, and magnificent, exceptions however. (my underrated fave is Walking On Glass.)
― sean gramophone, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:03 (sixteen years ago) link
OK, I'm excited about Matter. He really should stick to sci-fi these days.
― chap, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:06 (sixteen years ago) link
YAY!!!
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:11 (sixteen years ago) link
i love culture books!
Me too!
― chap, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:12 (sixteen years ago) link
the business is one of the worst books i have ever finished
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:14 (sixteen years ago) link
That gives me an idea for a thread.
― chap, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:15 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh, there already is one.
― chap, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:16 (sixteen years ago) link
i was really hoping that was what i would learn when i clicked this thread. about the new culture book i mean.
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 18:18 (sixteen years ago) link
-- akm, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:59 (3 hours ago)
^^^
The Bridge <-- A++++
― Autumn Almanac, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 21:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Doesn't he do a good dream sequence Almy? He's so good at depicting the surreal.
― moley, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 21:56 (sixteen years ago) link
I am a geek, Banks and Reynolds are guilty pleasures.
Matter will be a purchase.
― Jarlrmai, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 23:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Doesn't he do a good dream sequence
Yes. I love his Culture books, but I really think this is his ultimate strength -- surrealism. In fact, a David Lynch adaptation of The Bridge would be... I don't know, something amazing and very different?
― Lostandfound, Thursday, 17 January 2008 06:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Matter is half price at Waterstones at the mo. I bought it today.
― chap, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 18:47 (sixteen years ago) link
get me one?
fuckin hardcover!
sci-fi should come out in paperback. word is bond.
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 18:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Look to Windward was disappointing, he seemed to have fallen out of love with The Culture, and made it fall out of love with itself. I hope the relationship has recovered.
― ledge, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:30 (sixteen years ago) link
I really liked LTWW - if you look upthread, Ledge, we had a debate about this a year ago.
― chap, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:34 (sixteen years ago) link
The new one is supposed to be a worth inheritor, I just got a copy of the UK trade edition...not read yet. Culture novels being re-released with consistent designs for the US starting this spring, I think...?
― Laurel, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:35 (sixteen years ago) link
*worthy
we had a debate about this a year ago.
note to self, get some new thoughts.
― ledge, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 19:38 (sixteen years ago) link
It's alright, I'm sure I exhausted all of my opinions some time back in 2005.
― chap, Wednesday, 30 January 2008 20:07 (sixteen years ago) link
i'd never really heard of this guy. i don't closely follow sci-fi, but i picked up consider phlebas at B&N on whim. it seems great so far.
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 18:24 (sixteen years ago) link
It's very great. (I much prefer the Culture as a future/past setting to pretty much all others that have come up both in print and on TV.)
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 18:33 (sixteen years ago) link
As summed up in particular by this upthread from Jarlr'mai:
Most of the Culture novel are about how a supposed fully democractic utopia has to have a dark side in order to survive.
Obviously it's not that this theme hasn't been explored elsewhere; I just think this particular issue is a far more overarching and interesting one to see grappled with in an sf context, and that Banks does so in a way that's more involving on my end than the many other anti-Treks out there (or Trek itself, of course).
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 18:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Re-reading Consider Phlebas for the first time since '91. I hardly rememeber a word of it, and it's good whizz-bang fast-paced stuff.
Quick Q, as he's been mentioned on this thread, and elsewhere, in comparison to IMB: where should I start with Alastair Reynolds? (I am sort of waiting for House of Suns to come out in paperback)
― DavidM, Monday, 5 May 2008 08:18 (fifteen years ago) link
I gave up after Inversions, but The Algebraist is worth a try for a non-Culture SF novel. Shame he never followed up with more books in the same universe.
― a cad, a bounder, a rotter, a really bad sort (Matt #2), Thursday, 22 July 2021 11:07 (two years ago) link
I gave up after Inversions
Just before Look to Windward, which is cracking.
― chap, Thursday, 22 July 2021 11:28 (two years ago) link
I have a grudge against Look to Windward for betraying the ideals of the culture. Only read Matter once I think but I recall it as a cracking read, it's high on my list for a reread.
― At Easter I had a fall. I don't know whether to laugh or cry (ledge), Thursday, 22 July 2021 11:47 (two years ago) link
Hydrogen sonata is, remarkably for a culture novel, a snooze fest.
― At Easter I had a fall. I don't know whether to laugh or cry (ledge), Thursday, 22 July 2021 13:07 (two years ago) link
Crow Road documentary and repeat of the series starts tonight on bbc4
― koogs, Wednesday, 14 December 2022 15:47 (one year ago) link