in the middle of surface detail and it pretty freaking good so far.
I may go as far as to say the his best yet!
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Iain Banks / Iain M Banks
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Posted 1 year ago #
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My missus's ladies book club are meeting at our house tonight and SWMBO wants me to recommend then a sci-fi book. So which Ian M. Banks should it be? I'm thinking perhaps Against a Dark Background, especially as the main character is a women.
Surely 'The Time Traveler's Wife'
for the girls.
Posted 1 year ago # -
If you've read all the non-Ms then the Bridge and Walking on Glass are pretty scifi-ish anyway. Inversions is the least sci-fi of the Ms but hey, also one of the least good I reckon.
But then I reckon you should go direct to Consider Phlebeas, spaceships and massive train sets and really enormous shipwrecks etc all being awesome
Posted 1 year ago # -
But the Culture ship did get a request played on Radio 3.
IIRC they didn't get it played.
Yes, just googled it
Also while I'd been away, the ship had sent a request on a postcard to the BBC's World Service, asking for 'Mr David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for the good ship Arbitrary and all who sail in her.' (This from a machine that could have swamped Earth's entire electro-magnetic spectrum with whatever the hell it wanted from somewhere beyond Betelgeuse.) It didn't get the request played. The ship thought this was hilarious.
p.s. did we all miss this????
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hv1dz
as for a book club... I dunno. Lots of (almost all?) of the books feature a female protagonist. Maybe Excession, but Against a Dark Background is a safe choice despite being non-Culture.
I'm not sure I'd chose Iain M Banks though.
Posted 1 year ago # -
+1 for starting with The Use of Weapons - the first book of his that I read and it blew me away. Especially the bit with the chair...
Posted 1 year ago # -
Currently reading the algebraist (which I will resume doing as soon as I stop browsing STW) Pretty good, not as good as some of his other stuff but I like it. Keep missing important plot items, seem like just usual none essential extra details then 5 chapters later it's revealed as pretty bloody significant.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Surface detail has a woman (well, girl) in it and deals with some gender issues, but it is somewhat grim in places for a book club. Although I didn't find the Hell stuff particularly upsetting at all since it was dealt with very evenly and matter-of-factly. A bit like looking at a Dante painting in a gallery.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Look to Windward is my favourite I think. Though I haven't finished Use of Weapons yet, it's getting some good reviews from you lot, and I am enjoying it so far.
They are fairly hard going in some places though, as others have mentioned I probably wouldn't make them my first foray into Sci-Fi.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Favourite ship names:
-Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
-You Naughty Monsters
-Prosthetic Conscience
-Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall
-Pure Big Mad Boat ManPosted 1 year ago # -
Me, I liked Ultimate Ship 2.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yay for spaceships!
I always liked 'Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory'.
Phlebas is good, but not his best IMO, start with Surface Detail and then start from the beginning? If you decide you like it of course ...
Posted 1 year ago #
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