Forum menu
I’m going to go out on a limb here, not Scottish and can’t keep up with the vernacular?
I'm from Glasgow and it took me three attempts.
Once I finished it I couldn't really remember what it was about. Not his best, imo.
I think I picked up Feersum Enjin as an easy SF read after Mason & Dixon. Error.
Er. Feersum Enjin is Scottish vernacular. Did not realise that at all.
I hate vernacular in books. I read (as most people do) by recognising words, but in these books I don't recognise them so I have to read everything letter by letter. Much harder work.
More than happy with the phonetic spelling bits; the story, characters and overall lack of clarity about what was going on are what annoyed me.
I've read it slowly, quickly and with online reviews/guides open and its still gash IMHO.
the story, characters and overall lack of clarity about what was going on are what annoyed me.
Banks has got form for that though. You don't really find out what's going on until a good way through a good number of his culture/sci-fi novels, it's a stylistic tic you either like or don't
I know this as I'm a massive fan.
I’m from Glasgow and it took me three attempts.
I don't doubt you, if it's hard going for us then it's going to be a proper slog for someone not used to it.
It's another on the re-read list, Inversions is still back of the queue.
Bascule from Feersum Endjinn is one of my favourite characters. Love his tenacity. I think I read it when I was in a role supporting kids with dyslexia and he just made a lot of sense.
Once I finished it I couldn’t really remember what it was about
Entirely OT but I'm like a goldfish in that respect. I recently bought The Algebraist because I remember it coming out and not ponying up for the hardback edition.
Got about 2/3 of the way through and realised: "you know what, I have read this book before"; and then remembered buying it off eBay a few years back. Still couldn't remember the ending though.
I think I've read most of the Culture novels. I do find some of the grimmer passages a bit OTT at times -- The Archimandrite Luseferous in The Algebraist* is a good example of the kind of thing I'm thinking of. At the start his awfulness is darkly comic; as the novel goes on it's like "Yes, thank you, I get the point: this is a bad guy"; by the end he's like some pantomine villain and the effect is just totally lost. I'm not sure whether that's the point and I'm missing it; but it's something I have noticed in more than one Culture book.
Other than that, there's a lot to enjoy; and given my aforementioned goldfish tendencies maybe I'll go back and read them again 🙂
* appreciate this isn't a Culture novel per-se, but it's one that springs to mind as I've read it relatively recently
I love the Culture series, from the get-go the characters felt gritty and believable. If the OP wants to immerse themselves in the series then the obvious choice is to read in published order. Player of Games and Use of Weapons were stand out for me, after finishing Use of Weapons, it's probably a good idea to pick up The State of the Art for some reasonably light hearted relief.
I loved this line: "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".
I liked Inversions, but my missus (who loved The Crow Road and teaches literature to undergrads) hated it.
Just a wee bit too misogynistic, and little bit too racist for my taste. It’s shame (the concept is interesting, the Basil Exposition I could’ve done without) but he writes – and I hate to say this, like a lot of nerdy US white male writers (see Stephen King, et al). It’s almost like they have a blind spot for it.
I honestly didn't notice any of that. I definitely see the 'nerdy white writer' thing - the style is called 'maximalism' for a reason, and I'm a fan of Basil Exposition in book form - and there's clear evidence of deeply, deep heavy research, but maybe you're right. I am, after all, a white, middle-aged bloke, so maybe I'm blind to it too. I do try not to be, mind. 🤷
Why would you include The Bridge?
There’s a theory that its a secret Culture novel
Not read the link but I'd agree with that. To me his non-scifi books are part of the same universe, same values, same resonances with some (Transisions, Walking on Glass, Complicity) tingling on the edge of the Culture.
The writer I'd recommend if you miss Banks (which I really do) is David Mitchell. Similarly all his books are part of the same world, sharing some characters in different roles. Some books are minor but all are good and hugely readable, hugely humane, sometimes very moving. Cloud Atlas divides people but it gives a full on scifi hit.
(Read all the sci-fi in the library when I was a kid, but pretty much left it behind by my 20s, bar Ballard and Banks, bit of LeGuin, y'know, literary shite...)
Yeah I think I read a review that suggested it would be less sexist is there were actually no female characters in it at all. 👀
I think there ought to be a book version of the Bechdel test really.
OT but, was anyone else here on culture@busstop.org back in the day?
I wasn't on that, but I was active on the alt.books.iain-banks usenet group. Last week I found the ticket for the reading he did in London circa 2002 where the group had a post-reading drink with Banks himself. The question is why the hell did I lose the tee he signed!
Read all the sci-fi in the library when I was a kid, but pretty much left it behind by my 20s, bar Ballard and Banks, bit of LeGuin, y’know, literary shite…
I did this - it helped that I had a Saturday job in a bookshop and the SF/Fantasy section was right next to the till. By the time I went to uni I'd read pretty much everything that was good and easily available, so I moved onto other genres and ignored SF, other than Banks and one or two other writers. Then, about 15 years ago, I decided that enough time had lapsed that some other great SF/F writers must have appeared. They haven't, sadly. Most of the suggestions on threads like this are for writers who are ok, at best, but nowhere near the standard of Banks. But, the great thing these days is the availability of older works online, so I've been working my way through Jack Vance, LeGuin, etc, and finding the odd classic that I missed out on, like Ballard.
Wasn't there a thread on here not so long ago listing sci-fi recommendations?
Wasn’t there a thread on here not so long ago listing sci-fi recommendations?
About every 4 weeks normally. 😀
Yeah, the search button just confirmed that. Mostly recommending this guy called Iain M Banks, anyone heard of him?
You don’t really find out what’s going on until a good way through a good number of his culture/sci-fi novels
Yeah this is true and part of the beauty of it. That's why I suggest starting reading with PoG because it's a story in its own right and depends less on having read other books.
Inversions would be the opposite (haha). It'd be pretty aimless unless you know where the two characters are from and what that means.
imnotverygood
Full MemberEr. Feersum Enjin is Scottish vernacular. Did not realise that at all.
It kind of is and isn't. Mostly Bascule is just a funetik aksent, there's wee bits of scottishness (I always remember "pants spotted with cack") but mostly it's that Bascule is presumed dyslexic and is also pretty stream-of-consciousness, we're getting his story as he experiences it
there’s wee bits of scottishness (I always remember “pants spotted with cack”)
Unless it means something completely different to 'pants spotted with cack' that's just a phrase that could be from anywhere in the country.
Yup, but the way he drops it in is very glesga
r. Feersum Enjin is Scottish vernacular.
It might take a page or two but I don't find dialetc real or invented, makes much difference to my reading interest or ease. I can't be that unusual or Trainspotting etc would've had more limited success than they did.
Trainspotting was brilliantly done in that the characters’ use of dialect changed both between characters and depending on whether they were in a drugged or clean part of their life.
I didn't finish Trainspotting partly because of the vernacular, and there was some other one set in Aberystwyth with people from all around the UK which was even more of a faff. Managed that one, then found out there were sequels and gave up.
One of my prize possessions is a copy of Inversions that I had signed by Iain M Banks when it came out - got to meet him in a bookshop in Glasgow, he was very patient and answered/indulged my inane questions with good humour. A few years after he died my wife lent the book to a friend without telling me - very almost resulted in divorce proceedings...
he just told stories set in a variety of places
I liked his humour.
The other books are very good - The Wasp Factory.
Hate Fersum Engine.
I also like Christopher Brookmyre who isn’t really sci-fi.
Wasp Factory is a good book but very much a first novel albeit an excellent one. It has nothing like the depth of the rest of it, as you'd expect.
Christopher Brookmyre's done a sci-fi one now. It's good enough, but it's also just corrupt Parlabane in space.
Recently re-read The Bridge and totally missed the Culture references, so I'm going to have to read that again...
Yeah for me sci-fi has to be more than just the same old stuff but in space. Otherwise it's just fi.
Most of the suggestions on threads like this are for writers who are ok, at best, but nowhere near the standard of Banks.
I started reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series off the back of one of those threads. I think it would be fair to say that Banks was very much influenced by Asimov. I've only finished the first book so far but I found it very similar in tone and theme, if not quite as "high tech" as the Culture. Definitely recommended if you're missing Banks and haven't already read them.
Christopher Brookmyre’s done a sci-fi one now.
I thought it wasn't v good if I'm honest, and I'd consider myself a fan.
Definitely recommended if you’re missing Banks and haven’t already read them.
Thanks for the suggestion. I read through plenty of Asimov back in the 80s. I didn't enjoy him much then, but still have some on the shelves, so maybe worth another try seeing as I'm a little more mature. 😀
What I have not been able to find anywhere else* is 'utopian' sci-fi. It's always dystopian, and that feels so hackneyed these days. Yeah ok there might be terrible wars and we might all be short of resources, but you know what? We've read about that. What if we're NOT short of resources?
* except Star Trek, but let's not go there. Or maybe we should? Federation meets Culture fan-fic?
Federation meets Culture fan-fic?
Remember those episode where the Enterprise got caught in some sort of spider web in space and couldn't move, but even Spock and Scotty couldn't work out why. That was someone in a small Culture ship having a bit of a much about.
In any other circumstance it'd go like:
"We are Borg, you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile"
"Hi Borg, I'm the GCU Grey Area. I don't feel like being assimilated, so if it's OK with you I'll resist."
"We are Borg. Resistance is fut.... pfzzt".
"Sorry Borg, I got a bit bored there. Give me a call when you're over the anger issues and I'll let you out of that pan dimensional prison cell that you're now in".
They'd just re-direct the borg from being an Aggressive Hegemonising Swarm to an Evangelical swarm, all by the SC textbooks. Not that there are SC textbooks
“We are Borg, you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile”
“Hi Borg, I’m the GCU Grey Area. Let's have a look under the hood and sort these issues shall we?"
"Excellent. Now, my friend Sleeper Service is short of some friends, perhaps you would like to join him..."
FTFY
I thought it wasn’t v good if I’m honest, and I’d consider myself a fan.
Yep,I didn’t want to mention it was a bit …..
I preferred Pandaemonium more and that’s a bit different.
Since starting this thread https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/definitive-sci-fi-and-fantasy-book-list/ I've had a book by my bedside every night.
I'm trying to space out my culture hits as I've only got surface detail and hydrogen sonata left to read. Have built up a pretty good book collection and feel my life is better for it.
Started reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Attwood recently and while I enjoyed it, I just wasn't choosing to pick it up. Stuck it back on the shelf for another day and picked up Rendezvous at Rama by Arthur C Clark which I'm struggling to put down.
I'll try to get a few more in before going back to Banks. Got some Alastair Reynolds to scratch that itch too.
I read the first two and set them on fire in the wood burner after just to save humanity from anyone else reading the tripe
What a lovely attitude to have.
What a lovely attitude to have.
What STW thread is complete without a resident edgelord?
Oh, so we all have to agree on a book for the opinion to be valid.... Does that also count for music ? Art ? sculpture ? architecture ?
I read them, 2 of them. I wish i hadn't bothered... they were IMO absolutely terrible, mixed up, convoluted and absolute rubbish
I don't think the OP was asking if they should read them, they were asking what order they should read them in.
But thanks for sharing your opinion with a thread full of people who are Iain Banks fans.