[Closed] Iain Banks / Iain M Banks

My current favourite 'thinky' scifi book is Anathem, Neal Stephenson. Cleverer than a box of monkeys that bloke.

Never really got on with the Iain M Banks books, though all were well written and intelligent, the The Algebraist was the last one I read. Might have to go back for another go now.

if you like M

id reccomend
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Molgrips - did you get the reference at the end to the characters name??

Spoiler alert! Sort of.

That was a brilliant last line. And it provided closure to a previous story which is something Banks did before with The Bridge and Complicity.

Of the Culture novels, Player of Games is a good start and not too spaceshippy. Or Inversions. But that's not a fair example of a Culture novel.

Yeah and don't be scared of the spaceships. They're not like spaceships in other books 🙂

I wanna be an Abominator-class picket ship.

Don't f*ck with the Culture.

Best ship name?
[small letters] I said, I'm carrying a big stick [/small letters]
Just finished Surface Detail, very good. Look to Windward was also good.

I want to join the Culture. If a GSV stopped by Earth tomorrow I'd be there.

i quite liked the revelation series, but hamilton's 'epic' left me cold. i trudged all the way through the trilogy but found it difficult to care about any of the characters at all.

I want to join the Culture. If a GSV stopped by Earth tomorrow I'd be there.

Me too. Didn't they come in the late 70's?

Did they?

That was the Vogons.

No they came in the late 70's. See 'The State of the Art'. They decided to leave us to it. But the Culture ship did get a request played on Radio 3.

Me too. Didn't they come in the late 70's?

[EDIT: Too slow..]

hamilton's 'epic' left me cold

Order placed. I went for Consider Phlebas.

I found Matter really hard to get into and gave up but love the others I've read. Feersum endjinn is amazing.

I love the sense of scale he creates and uses, amazing.

bigjim - Member
I found Matter really hard to get into and gave up

Matter took ages to get going. The end was exciting but it's not my favourite.

Look to Windward was good. Really good subject matter. Dealing with loss and grief etc.

I've read pretty much all of his books (including Raw Spirit) and pretty much liked them all. I think Excession is my favourite though.

Favourite culture ship name is either "Ultimate Ship The Second" or "Demented But Determined".

the one about the chair is the best, forget what its called

the one about the chair is the best, forget what its called

Use of Weapons.

molgrips - Member

Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints was probably the coolest ship, regardless of name.

Another recommendation for transition.

I'd day it's an "M" book even though it was Iain Banks. Most accessible of his space shippy stuff ive read. Just don't ask me to explain what the hell it was about!

For Banks fans (with or without the M) who are also interested in Whisky his book Raw Spirit is also rather good.

I found it rather expensive also as he wrote about the different whisky's he tried with such passion I wanted to try them too.

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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.

Nearly finished Consider Phlebas. Enjoying it a lot.

epicsteve - Member
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,

Personally, I would not recommend Banks for a first foray into Sci Fi - they are amazing books and Look to Windward stunned me for an hour or so... It was incredible! If I had to, it would be "Against a Dark Background" - dark and gritty with a female lead character.

For those that are new to Sci Fi - I would recommend something a bit lighter and accessible like "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi as an easier entry.

Rysz.

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!

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.

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 [i]enormous[/i] shipwrecks etc all being awesome 😉

But the Culture ship did get a request played on Radio 3.

IIRC they [i]didn't[/i] 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 [i]Excession[/i], but [i]Against a Dark Background[/i] is a safe choice despite being non-Culture.

I'm not sure I'd chose Iain M Banks though.

+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...

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.

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.

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.

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 Man

Me, I liked Ultimate Ship 2.

Yay for spaceships!

I always liked 'Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory'.

[i]Phlebas[/i] is good, but not his best IMO, start with [i]Surface Detail[/i] and then start from the beginning? If you decide you like it of course ...