Iain M Banks

the_monkey

Hi I posted this is Literature ... maybe it was the wrong place, no replies ...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055857727


Basically ... what would people recommend of his work ?

Culture series or a stand alone ? ... I have been looking at reading
The Algebraist ??

Shryke

The Culture series definitely. You really don't need to read them in any order although I would recommend reading Consider Phlebas first and it is the first book in the Culture series. I think his best is Use of Weapons. I think it's the third in sequence.

suiecyco

Has to be the Culture series. You have to read them all in order. My favourite is Look to Windward. favourite line, "You do not **** with the Culture"

Johnny Storm

Iain M is the biz.
+1 to what Skryke said
"The State of the Art" is a collection of short stories, many of which are about the Culture and spell out some things about it that are not made explicit elsewhere.

ie Earth's relationship to the Culture

the_monkey

OK guys thanks a lot !!!

I still wanna give the ALgebraist a go .... i read some good reviews ... anyone here recommend it ?

copacetic

I didn't like it that much, one of his weaker ones imo.

3DataModem

With respect to the above poster, I think the Algebraist is incredible. My favourite Iain and Iain M book and the only sci fi one I've read three times.

LookingFor

I (unwittingly) started back to front with Matter...loved it. I picked up the first a while back and sort of started it, but it didn't really suck me in as strongly as Matter did. I'll have to get back to it.

d'Oracle

I liked "Against a Dark Background"

"Song of stone" (Witten as Iain Banks) Is a great book.
Really liked his use of language in that one.

Must read some more of his books.

macinalli

I find the culture series very varied. Loved the earlier ones, especially Player of Games & Use of Weapons. Wasn't too impressed with Excession and gave up on Inversions.
+1 also for Against a Dark Background

Dades

suiecyco wrote: »

Has to be the Culture series. You have to read them all in order.

I don't think they need to be read in order at all. I'd actually recommend Player of Games as a starting point.

Use of Weapons is my favourite. Didn't care for Excession much, tbh.
Against a Dark Background was a cracking read too.

Johnny Storm

the_monkey wrote: »

OK guys thanks a lot !!!

I still wanna give the ALgebraist a go .... i read some good reviews ... anyone here recommend it ?

Average ... IMHO.

Beeinmybonnet

I quite liked The Business.

Beeinmybonnet

d'Oracle wrote: »

I liked "Against a Dark Background"

"Song of stone" (Witten as Iain Banks) Is a great book.
Really liked his use of language in that one.

Must read some more of his books.

Yeah, it's a great book, really different. Really reminded me of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, similar style.

Pugsley

I've only read "Algebraist" and "Player of Games", but I thought they were both fantastic books, have always mean't to pick up more of his work.

madrab

Really liked inversions, though i did find it hard to read due to the AI stream of consciousness thingy that it uses

ixoy

Reading "Matter" right now. I love the central concept of the ShellWorlds. I'm about 130 pages in and it's got the usual quota of smart writing. Liking it so far.

If you want to read one of his sci-fi books and really have your head screwed with, try "Feersum Endjin", a book written phoenetically. It'll make some of the weaker posters on boards seem like spelling Nazis

Orim

I would advise "The Wasp Factory".

It's one of his earlier books and isn't a sci-fi but it's a cracking read.

Shryke

ixoy wrote: »

Reading "Matter" right now. I love the central concept of the ShellWorlds. I'm about 130 pages in and it's got the usual quota of smart writing. Liking it so far.

If you want to read one of his sci-fi books and really have your head screwed with, try "Feersum Endjin", a book written phoenetically. It'll make some of the weaker posters on boards seem like spelling Nazis

Only one view point is! I have to admit I actually liked those chapters, they had charm and a fun character.
Glad to hear Matter is good. I'll be getting to it soon(ish).

CiDeRmAn

So far I have read nothing by Iain M Banks I haven't at least really enjoyed.
The Culture series is case and point and it's kinda important to read them as they published, as later works sometimes assume you already have an insight into the tech and philosophies of The Culture.
It's not so much that one is better than another, more that people have their favorites and this is wrapped up in the time they spent reading it, the age they were at the time and so on.
Certainly Use Of Weapons has a different effect on me now when I read it than it did many years ago when I read it after it was first published, back in 1990, when I was 18 and didn't have quite the understanding of the world that I have now, to put it mildly.

My mate and I more disagree about the worst of his books, I don't have one, although I didn't enjoy Matter as much as the others, he detests Feersum Endjinn which I love from start to finish, especially when you realise what the structure is, love it love it!

Antar Bolaeisk

Just finished reading Excession there now and, while it was good and an enjoyable read, I felt it wasn't as good as the other Clture books of his that I've read so far (Consider Phleabas, Player of Games and The Use of Weapons). What did annoy me though was the fact that I finally thought I had figured out just what the hell was going on when everything turned upside down, not once but twice.

Still though, from what I've read so far I will definitely be picking up the other books.

One thing that really gets me with his Culture books though are the names, I'm generally quite bad with names so the sentence long names that populate these books really leave me confuzzled and I tend to just make up names for the characters to better get a grip of who's who.

Johnny Storm

Yeah, particularly in Excession, I completely lost track of which ship was which.

CiDeRmAn

I like Meat ****er, he/she is too cool for school

And, for the easily confused, here are the two best sites on The Culture,
This one written by Banks himself, and published online by the great Ken McLeod, so pay attention!
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_thread/thread/44c79ecc215d44eb/2b05e32641fee4c2?hl=en%02b05e32641fee4c2

And this one you have all probably found for yourselves but here it is anyways,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture

And lastly, for those who find the endless array of awesome ship minds, here is a list of those, with some nice notes,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_%28The_Culture%29



Best ship name ever?
A Demilitarised Rapid Offensive Unit or dROU called "Frank Exchange of Views", pure genius!
When I am aboard a craft that is about to fup someone up, I want it to have a name like that!

Also good are the following
OU (Offensive Unit) called I Said, I've Got A Big Stick,
OU called All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff,
dROU called You'll Clean That Up Before You Leave

Like I said already, the man is a genius, I wish I was that smart!

the_monkey

Finally started the Algebraist , great read so far - about 80 pages in - Banks has some amazing imagination, I think I'll give the Culture series a go after this one.

the_monkey

Wow ... really enjoying this Algebraist , what about his other non culture
sci fci stories ? I think he has 2 others .
Are they good ?

and should I read the Culture series in order ?

cheers.

Johnny Storm

the_monkey wrote: »

and should I read the Culture series in order ?

I would.

mikhail

the_monkey wrote: »

Wow ... really enjoying this Algebraist , what about his other non culture
sci fci stories ? I think he has 2 others .
Are they good ?

and should I read the Culture series in order ?

cheers.

Against A Dark Background is non-Culture, as is Feersum Endjinn. Inversions is technically Culture, but it's not really a big deal in the story. I'd agree that it's worth reading the other Iain M Banks books in the order they were published, but it's not vital.

the_monkey

OK thanks guys, Algebraist excellent book.
Would Culture series be similar style ?

is the 1st Culture book good ?

sorry to ask just i have a lot of books in Q , so wanna see if they are
worth the investment (time)..

Dades

I would suggest Player of Games as a first Culture book to read.

Consider Phlebas was technically first, but to me reads more like a stand alone novel.

mikhail

the_monkey wrote: »

OK thanks guys, Algebraist excellent book.
Would Culture series be similar style ?

Yes, the style of the Culture books is (mostly) similar enough.

is the 1st Culture book good ?

It's not regarded as being as good as his later books, but it's a reasonably good book. If you're dubious about investing time in it, plenty of people seem to have happily started with The Player of Games and only returned to Consider Phlebas only when they finished the other books.

the_monkey

Great ! , so I really liked the Algebraist and others haven't - they say culture series is a lot better so hopefully I'll really enjoy them!

cheers

Johnny Storm

JIMHO "Consider Phlebas" is probably the second best Culture book.

CiDeRmAn

I started with Player Of Games back in the day, then went to the start again, but at the time Use of Weapons hadn't been published so it made it a tad easier to choose!
Player of Games is also that but lighter than his other books, so easier to "get into" the Culture, an anarchist socialist society, why can't I live there?

If you like Mr Banks then you should try The Nights Dawn trilogy, big space opera, very cool!
Also Ilium is wonderful by big Dan Simmons, not to mention the sequel Olympos.

transylman

I started with Player of Games too and would recommend it as a starting point.

That, Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, Against a Dark Background are all very good books.

Would leave reading his more recent books (2000 onwards) until the end as there is a noticeable decline in the quality of his writing.

the_monkey

transylman wrote: »

I started with Player of Games too and would recommend it as a starting point.

That, Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, Against a Dark Background are all very good books.

Would leave reading his more recent books (2000 onwards) until the end as there is a noticeable decline in the quality of his writing.

ok good.

I'll try "Player of games" ..

Memnoch

For some reason I was a little disappointed with Matter, but I think that's because I'm not really into Fantasy that much and the Fantasy aspects of the story bored me a little and could just have been any story of medieval intrigue, though I liked the way it fitted into the rest of the culture universe in the end. Still felt it was one of his weaker works.

Inversions is probably the second weakest one for me, again, too much real world stuff I guess.

Excession is my favourite novel of his, I think it's just pure genius. In fact, it's probably my favourite novel of all time in any genre. It really makes you stop and think and re-examine concepts of good and evil and I've never seen the brilliant hypocrisy of the culture so beautifully exposed.

Also, I know this is the Ian M Banks thread, but if you like that style of sci-fi novels, I can also strongly recommend House of Sons by Alistar Reynolds.

InvisibleBadger

The cover and blurb of the next Culture novel have been released. It looks like it's going to look at the sublimed races of the galaxy.
http://www.iain-banks.net/2010/06/23/surface-detail-cover-launch/

Dades

I'm excited but dubious about this. I think I prefer more laser guns than conceptual stuff and Culture ship-speak.

More Use of Weapons, than Excession, like.

In the middle of Look to Windward at the moment and find it is really drifting. No real urgency or stakes to speak of.

InvisibleBadger

Look to Windward should please in the end. I think its up there with Excession as my favorite culture novel.
Apparently the new novel is going to be a big one(200,000 words), so there should be room for guns, thoughtfulness and excellent ship names.

Vim Fuego

I've just recently finished State of the Art, and Use of Weapons shortly before.

State of the art is alright, nothing of real consequence but some nice images here and there. The title story features Diziet from UoW working in Contact on Earth in 1977. Interesting but it didn't grab me, the poignancy signposted all along the way.

I enjoyed Use of Weapons but still, not a patch on Player of Games.

I have been reading chronologically so far so I should read Against A Dark Background next but I want more Culture.

Trojan

Vim Fuego wrote: »

I have been reading chronologically so far so I should read Against A Dark Background next but I want more Culture.

Against A Dark Background is incredibly good. Go for it.

Shryke

Trojan wrote: »

Against A Dark Background is incredibly good. Go for it.

Seconded.

ixoy

Shryke wrote: »

Seconded.

Thirded. One of my favourite Banks' books.

Vim Fuego

SOLD

Against....it is so. Thanks

Arfan

Reading Consider Phlebas at the moment. The cannibalism made me feel sick which is a testement to Banks. You know a writer must be good when he can make you physically ill with just words.

mikhail

Trojan wrote: »

Against A Dark Background is incredibly good. Go for it.

Yes it is. Until the end, where it goes all pear-shaped.

the_monkey

Bargain alert ... most of Iain M Banks books available new in Chapters for €4.99!!!!

SNAP EM UP!!!

I've only read two of his books so far. Matter, I couldn't get into and Transition was brilliant.
Perhaps I should give his culture novels another try, but it was taking too long to actually describe anything interesting about The Culture for my liking, which is why I haven't finished it.

mikhail

Deleted User wrote: »

I've only read two of his books so far. Matter, I couldn't get into and Transition was brilliant.
Perhaps I should give his culture novels another try, but it was taking too long to actually describe anything interesting about The Culture for my liking, which is why I haven't finished it.

You might try The State of the Art. It's a collection of short stories plus one novelette, all set in the Culture universe.

InvisibleBadger

The first chapter of his new book Surface Detail is on his website:
http://www.iain-banks.net/2010/09/28/read-an-extract-from-surface-detail-by-iain-m-banks/
I don't know if I can hold out for the paperback version!

madrab

Werent there

hints at a massive conspiriacy/plot gainst the culture in look to windward? i thought that the chel had allies (in big floating enviroment suits) or am i just getting confused? Has anymore been said on this??