Where to Begin: Iain Banks

Is it really as bad as stated upthread?

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.

> 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.

felt the same about the algebraist tbh.

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.

xpost - exactly.

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?

SC are the "dark side" the people that allow the vast majority of the Culture to live in a peaceful utopia.

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).

new Culture book out in 3 weeks time!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matter-Iain-M-Banks/dp/1841494178/

i couldn't finish the crow road, it was interminably meandering and dull

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.)

OK, I'm excited about Matter. He really should stick to sci-fi these days.

YAY!!!

i love culture books!

Me too!

the business is one of the worst books i have ever finished

That gives me an idea for a thread.

Oh, there already is one.

i was really hoping that was what i would learn when i clicked this thread. about the new culture book i mean.

i couldn't finish the crow road, it was interminably meandering and dull

-- akm, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:59 (3 hours ago)

^^^

The Bridge <-- A++++

Doesn't he do a good dream sequence Almy? He's so good at depicting the surreal.

I am a geek, Banks and Reynolds are guilty pleasures.

Matter will be a purchase.

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?

Matter is half price at Waterstones at the mo. I bought it today.

get me one?

fuckin hardcover!

sci-fi should come out in paperback. word is bond.

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.

I really liked LTWW - if you look upthread, Ledge, we had a debate about this a year ago.

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...?

*worthy

we had a debate about this a year ago.

note to self, get some new thoughts.

It's alright, I'm sure I exhausted all of my opinions some time back in 2005.

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.

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.)

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).

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)

Anyone else read Matter? I thought it started brilliantly, but dragged a bit in the middle, and by the end it was kind of obvious he'd been ODing on the crazy idea juice -

(SPOILERS)

that shellworld destroying beastie just popped out of nowhere and laid waste to all his elaborately woven plot threads.

Though I liked the pay-off coda with Holse, who was my favourite character by the end.

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.

Hydrogen sonata is, remarkably for a culture novel, a snooze fest.

Crow Road documentary and repeat of the series starts tonight on bbc4