Death of the Culture

[Leifmk]

Mad conceptual stuff. With the middle M he's sci-fi, without it he's straight literature. Bit of a bugger for the sting in the tail. The sci-fi is a kind of dark post-scarsity thing called The Culture. Start with Use of Weapons. Without the M his first book was The Wasp Factory.

It's only most of his M books that are set in the Culture universe, there's about three I can think of that are independent of it (and a fourth which is only implicitly part of that universe).

My copy of The Wasp Factory (yellowed, battered old paperback) has, as is quite usual for paperback editions, a lot of quotes from reviewers on the first pages. More unusually, only about half of those quotes are along the lines of "this is a really good book by a promising new author"; the other half go "this is horrible, the author is sick and whoever is responsible for getting this accepted by a hitherto reputable publishing house should be fired". And, hilariously, there's one which goes "this is completely mediocre and boring".

 

[Winston Hughes]

Dramatic Exit, Or, Thank you And Goodnight.

 

[Leifmk]

Mistake Not...

One of the funniest parts of the Culture universe, of course, is the names of the Culture ships. It should be mentioned at this point that the Culture is a huge and powerful (as such things go) galactic civilization which is a hybrid of vaguely humanoid peoples and computer intelligences known as Minds (descended from artificial intelligences built by those humanoids' ancestors, but... "close to gods, and on the far side"). Each ship is, most commonly, also basically the body of a single Mind. So ships are persons, and they basically choose their own jobs and functions according to their personal preferences -- and of course they name themselves, with a long-standing tradition for absurd and/or black humour. So you have warships cruising around with enough power to lay waste to entire solar systems without even trying very hard, calling themselves things like Ultimate Ship the Second or No More Mr. Nice Guy.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Currently listening to my first Banks novel - matter (a decision finding its initial starting point in reading warpus' ecstatic raves about the man and his works). I find it a difficult book to listen to in English, weather of Banks vocabulary or is style or the guy who tells the novel I am not sure of (though I usually do something else while listening and like to momentarily vanish inside some mental dwelling, forgetting that I am listening to a book - so that doesn't help). But it is interesting so far.
I will probably honor Banks by enriching his family by buying more of his works.

@Leifmk
That review thing is fantastic

 

[GinandTonic]

Mistake Not...

One of the funniest parts of the Culture universe, of course, is the names of the Culture ships. It should be mentioned at this point that the Culture is a huge and powerful (as such things go) galactic civilization which is a hybrid of vaguely humanoid peoples and computer intelligences known as Minds (descended from artificial intelligences built by those humanoids' ancestors, but... "close to gods, and on the far side"). Each ship is, most commonly, also basically the body of a single Mind. So ships are persons, and they basically choose their own jobs and functions according to their personal preferences -- and of course they name themselves, with a long-standing tradition for absurd and/or black humour. So you have warships cruising around with enough power to lay waste to entire solar systems without even trying very hard, calling themselves things like Ultimate Ship the Second or No More Mr. Nice Guy.

I liked the warship called the I said I have a very big stick.

Font size being a specified part of the name.

 

[El_Machinae]

I have strong transhumanist leanings, and I found Banks' characterization quite in-line with my thoughts. I didn't read him til recently, and I wonder how much his writings influenced the transhumanist culture. He's never mentioned, but his portrayal of Minds is pretty darned close to what lots of people're thinking.

 

[peter grimes]

Just bought Use of Weapons.

I'm glad I looked at this thread - it will be serendipitous if by his death I come across an author I like, but had never heard of...

 

[Tarquelne]

Start with Use of Weapons.

Perhaps my least-favorite Culture book. Still good, of course.


I can't remember which I read first... either Excession, which I thought hugely-fun, or Consider Phlebas, which I thought hugely... something. (I'm tempted to say the relatively dry technical/historical appendices at the end of CP are, on their own, better than most sci-fi novels. But that's not actually true. Probably.)

Consider Phlebas is the book I recommend to all those people who look down on sci-fi and read nothing but Russian classics. You know who I'm talking about.

(Side note: Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus and Consider Phlebas strike me as extremely similar, and excellent. The overall tone is rather different, but both largely concern the protagonist's long odyssey, the exotic places he visits and people he encounters, and how he does or doesn't change.)

 

[Quackers]

Here is an article from the Guardian of his final interview.

 

[Kozmos]

Just started Consider Pheblas. Liking it so far.