The Official Iain M Banks Thread

[Sirloin]

I dunno, I really enjoyed Matter. A lot of the stuff I like about Iain M Banks is his universe building and I always find it interesting when his characters are allowed to wander. Could have done without that sidetrack to the looney who talks to himself though. I loved the idea of it all being an intricate SC set up though.

[fragglerock]

I seem to have given up on Matter half way through... guess I should soldier on!

[K]

I dunno, I really enjoyed Matter. A lot of the stuff I like about Iain M Banks is his universe building and I always find it interesting when his characters are allowed to wander. Could have done without that sidetrack to the looney who talks to himself though. I loved the idea of it all being an intricate SC set up though.

You can world-build and tell a story at the same time, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, that’s what good fiction is all about – balancing narrative with exposition. A lot of SF struggles with this, as it’s tempting to dump all the brilliant ideas you’ve been cooking up down onto the page, but a contemporary novel would be pretty dull if the characters went on a three hundred-page world tour just because the author wanted to describe his recent trip to Japan. It’s the literary equivalent of someone showing you their holiday photos.

[Danster]

In answer to most of what you thought of it K, that's why I read it a second time!

I needed to go back and re-dicover the characters and races with the knowledge only gleamed from the hindsight of reading the book. I think it's fair to say that I enjoyed it more on the 2nd read but shouldn't have had to re-read it.

[Sirloin]

You can world-build and tell a story at the same time, the two arent mutually exclusive. In fact, thats what good fiction is all about balancing narrative with exposition. A lot of SF struggles with this, as its tempting to dump all the brilliant ideas youve been cooking up down onto the page, but a contemporary novel would be pretty dull if the characters went on a three hundred-page world tour just because the author wanted to describe his recent trip to Japan. Its the literary equivalent of someone showing you their holiday photos.

Hmm, but in this case, wasn't it part of the exposition,

the journey was there to show that SC were in control of/manipulating the situation all along, which was why the device of making them travel through space owned by a species who didn't like their tech, but yet there was still a knife missile/ship/proxies there to ensure they returned to the Shellworld.

EDIT:added spoiler tags just in case.

[K]

Hmm, but in this case, wasn't it part of the exposition,

the journey was there to show that SC were in control of/manipulating the situation all along, which was why the device of making them travel through space owned by a species who didn't like their tech, but yet there was still a knife missile/ship/proxies there to ensure they returned to the Shellworld.

EDIT:added spoiler tags just in case.

Eh? I'm not sure I understand that.

SC were manipulating

things, sure, but why did that necessitate Ferbin and thingy going off on their excellent adventure, while Djan has a few dreams about things?

[Sirloin]

Eh? I'm not sure I understand that.

SC were manipulating

things, sure, but why did that necessitate Ferbin and thingy going off on their excellent adventure, while Djan has a few dreams about things?

Well its about being watched I thought, that was the point of the loopy bloke. He was constantly talking to an assumed third party despite being in the middle of a high security base. Djan is looking specifically for a recording of her father's death, but none is forthcoming, and I think it is said a couple of times that the Culture must have been watching, and I think that point is made a few times. The eccentric "SC" ship is convinced though that they will need assistance when they get back to the Shellworld, and gives a fairly unconvicing reason why, to the point that Djan even notes that, plus there was that heavy handed hint about the Sleeper Service. So, SC knew what was going on down there from the start, but its chosen agents in this were Febrin and Djan, who were given help to get across Morthanveld space back to the Shellworld, and were kitted out with exactly the right sort of kit to be able to take out the Iln via the SC ship. It all seemed a bit pat. Why was Djan taken from the Shellworld and trained as a SC agent in the first place? Why would SC intervene and increase the tech level of that specific faction on the Shellworld? Why would the Oct know what was under the falls and not SC? The meanderings were there to emphasise the point that SC were moving them along there. It was stated that the Culture wouldn't intervene directly as they didn't want to piss off the Morthanveld, yet they would still send a knife misslie, a ship, reactivate weaponry and so on. And all for an agent that was conveniently taken from the faction that they had set up to be in control of the artifact. I thought the entire novel was about SC playing the (very) long game

But I read it dead fast so I'm probably wrong

[K]

Fair enough, but I’m sure Banks could have worked all this into the novel in a more engaging way!

[Nick R]

Yeah, I love the huge convoluted setups in the books, only a Mind could think of all the subtleties and arrangements possible to make things happen. Probably summed up best with Gurgeh's vague wondering about the time of his birth coinciding with the discovery of the Empire, something which the drone (

Mawhrin-skel

) brushes off a little too lightly.

I finished Player of Games a couple of days ago, and that idea of the main character being conditioned from birth to achieve a major victory very much reminded me of Ender's Game. In fact, the descriptions of tactics in Azad games could be compared to Ender working out strategies in the Battle Room. Come to think of it, The Player of Games even begins with the line, "The story ends with a game that is not a game."...

[Danster]

I finished Player of Games a couple of days ago, and that idea of the main character being conditioned from birth to achieve a major victory very much reminded me of Ender's Game. In fact, the descriptions of tactics in Azad games could be compared to Ender working out strategies in the Battle Room. Come to think of it, The Player of Games even begins with the line, "The story ends with a game that is not a game."...

How'd you find it? I still have a very soft spot for this book as it was my first step into the Culture world. And still, to this day, the only book I have ever started again as soon as I finished!

[Nick R]

How'd you find it? I still have a very soft spot for this book as it was my first step into the Culture world. And still, to this day, the only book I have ever started again as soon as I finished!

I thought it was fantastic. I loved the writing in the book's final Azad match: the descriptions of the game as a dance, and

the perfect means of debating the Culture and Azadians' philosophies.

Consider Phlebas was great, but at first I was a little disappointed to find that the series starts with a book about a protagonist who's outside the Culture, and I'd have to wait till Book Two for some scenes set inside it. So The Player of Games has a lot more of that fun stuff about drones (I had no idea how to picture the one in Consider Phlebas, so I was pleased to see this book had some more specific descriptions) and glands and gender alteration.

I'm looking forward to reading more about the Minds; I gather Excession is the book that focuses on them a lot?

[Danster]

Yeah Excession has some full-blown mind chats, introduces the idea of Infinite Time Fun and their "control" of the Culture...

It makes reading some of it a little difficult (especially, I found, remembering the characters of the Minds by their names...) but it's well worth the perserverance.

[Eats hoops and leaves]

If that's what you like then Excession is going to blow your mind.

[Mr Cochese]

I always found Excession really dull and rambling after the incredibly tight and brutal first three Culture books. Different horses and all that, I suppose.

The prologue is incredible though, even though it basically sets the story up as something it's not (on top of being a pretty straight steal of the opening of A Fire Upon The Deep).

[Mogster]

Consider Phlebas was great, but at first I was a little disappointed to find that the series starts with a book about a protagonist who's outside the Culture, and I'd have to wait till Book Two for some scenes set inside it. So The Player of Games has a lot more of that fun stuff about drones (I had no idea how to picture the one in Consider Phlebas, so I was pleased to see this book had some more specific descriptions) and glands and gender alteration.

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember that The Player of Games was actually written before Considder Phlebas, but his publisher felt it would be better to introduce readers to the Culture from an outsider's point of view. I might have just made that up though.

I bloody loved Excession. Among other things it features a space battle across five dimensions, which is amazingly well written.

[Captain Novaforce]

Yeah I think Use of Weapons was actually written first (can't be bothered checking) but Phlebas was the first chronologically. I liked Matter, but I think the what sets the earlier Culture novels apart from the later is that you can see their flaws a bit more. By the time of Matter the Culture I think seems a bit too perfect and a bit too powerful. I'd love a Culture novel set a bit more in the past, maybe during an episode of the Idirian war, or before in a period when you can't help thinking "There wouldn't be a problem here if they just sent a GSV in guns blazing and sorted everything out".

Both the Affront and the Oct were basically mini Idirians, they weren't really a threat. In Matter I couldn't help but root for the Iln a wee bit, or at least want to know what could have made something that was esentially a match for a Mind stay so pissed off for hundereds of millenia. What he seemed to be getting at with the Morthanveld and the Culture was that once a civilisation reaches a certain level of tech they begin to develop a benelovant utopian mindset, which is a bit dull. Give me more psycopathic Iln to start messing with everyones shit!

[Eats hoops and leaves]

I believe that Use of Weapons was written in 1976 - so 1 year before Star Wars was released

[K]

I think Use of Weapons and The Player of Games were both extensively revised from their earlier drafts.

[Mr Cochese]

Consider Phlebas is also a sort of revision of an early unpublished novel called O. I didn't realise for ages that Use Of Weapons was basically distilled down from an immense book he wrote in the seventies. It explains how come the reverse order chapters seem so well developed, even though they are episodic.

[Danster]

New book Transition, could be an M novel, according to the man himself:

http://www.iain-banks.net/2009/06/18/iain-...he-prague-post/

"The template I had in mind was The Bridge, my third novel, from 1986. I still think very highly of it, and I liked the way its structure let me use different voices and approaches. So, for Transition, I was trying to come up with something as different and challenging. I still think of Transition as basically mainstream, but I guess there's enough sci-fi in there to justify publishing it as such in a market where my sci-fi has generally done better."

[Headache]

New book Transition, could be an M novel, according to the man himself:

http://www.iain-banks.net/2009/06/18/iain-...he-prague-post/

YES!

[Aardvark]

Consider Phlebas is also a sort of revision of an early unpublished novel called O. I didn't realise for ages that Use Of Weapons was basically distilled down from an immense book he wrote in the seventies. It explains how come the reverse order chapters seem so well developed, even though they are episodic.

Apparently it was Ken MacLeod who suggested the dovetailing plot structure in UoW as the book didn't work as originally written.

[Mogster]

The Bridge was excellent. I covered it for an A Level essay way back when, and felt rather smug when I told my teacher about the sneaky Culture references. She didn't even know he wrote sci-fi.

[K]

It’ll be interesting to see if he can recapture his previous form because his last few non-SF books have been spectacularly rubbish, a few sections in Dead Air notwithstanding. It’s good to see that he’s trying a bit harder this time anyway, as Dead Air felt like a short story padded out with blog extracts, and The Business and The Steep Approach to Rubbishdale didn’t even feel like stories, just vague ramblings that were as weak as dishwater.

That said, he said Matter was super-complex and hard to follow and that was a rambling mess.

[Plums]

Oh wow, I'm a big fan of Banks sci-fi but I've never seen this thread.

I would say that The Player of Games and Excession were his finest two novels by some distance. Re-reading Feersum Endjinn at the moment and that is up there with his best too. I must get another copy of Consider Phlebas as it went missing some time ago.

[cassidy]

Oh wow, I'm a big fan of Banks sci-fi but I've never seen this thread.

I would say that The Player of Games and Excession were his finest two novels by some distance. Re-reading Feersum Endjinn at the moment and that is up there with his best too. I must get another copy of Consider Phlebas as it went missing some time ago.

Only Banks book I never finished is Feersum Endjinn. May have to try again though.

[smac]

Only Banks book I never finished is Feersum Endjinn. May have to try again though.

Ah, I loved that - but the language is initially a barrier; until something clicks and you get into Bascule's head.

But I love those festering gothic piles/baroque cityscapes: Gormenghast, Viridium, Ankh-Morpork, the palace in Moorcock's Gloriana, Mieville's New Crobuzon and so on.

[Captain Novaforce]

Yep, never finished that one either. Looking forward to the new one though the Bridge was class

[Plums]

Only Banks book I never finished is Feersum Endjinn. May have to try again though.

Bascule's prose is quite challenging to read but it's very clever. You're forced to read it properly, skimming is impossible. I also love how British Bascule comes off, not something you see often even in Banks SF.

The bit

after he comes back from his encounter with the evil face-thing in the crypt and is talking about going back in. He says he's feers and that a litl burd tol me.

He's just such a likeable character.

Same thing goes for the Asura -

the bit where she farts at the table made me lol

.

They are both protagonists that don't fall into the kind of hero cliches that affect some other Banks characters.

[El Geet]

It’ll be interesting to see if he can recapture his previous form because his last few non-SF books have been spectacularly rubbish, a few sections in Dead Air notwithstanding. It’s good to see that he’s trying a bit harder this time anyway, as Dead Air felt like a short story padded out with blog extracts, and The Business and The Steep Approach to Rubbishdale didn’t even feel like stories, just vague ramblings that were as weak as dishwater.

That said, he said Matter was super-complex and hard to follow and that was a rambling mess.

I refuse to read any more Iain Banks non-SF since Dead Air: an awful book. It didn't help that throughout the book I was picturing Simon Mayo or Nicky Campbell as the protgagonist.

I've really enjoyed most of his SF work especially the sheer scale of his universe. Thing is after reading Revelation Space (Alastair Reynolds) a while back, I'm not sure Banks can compete in that area. Is that unfair of me to say?

Oops, only just realised how old this thread is...