When you talk about people you make them important. I want to think more about who I choose to make important.
Even if you are criticizing someone, burying their bad ideas with logic and all the knives of science you're still making them and their ideas important.
You can expect me to talk about Iain M. Banks more and the questions I have about his work.
It's why it's probably is a good idea to do a critical review of Newitz and their "Terraformers" which I also have questions about.
@futurebird Ooh, OK. My starter. I think Iain M. Banks wrote slightly better books as Iain Banks, than Iain M. Banks. Controversial I know.
He wrote my favourite opening line of a book ever.
"It was the day my grandmother exploded"
Terraformers has a bit of the fever-dream about it.
Though, I just got to the bit about the dairy farm and I think Newitz has a sense of humor that is often lost on too many of their readers who either take it all seriously and think it's so cool... or so awful.
But the idea of a sentient cow having to be patient with a person who is fretting and feeling bad that the cow saw a dairy farm is objectively funny.
@futurebird @Nonya_Bidniss @eclectech
Yeah I read Terraformers as having a huuuuge looming shadow of the Shoah, "Humanism Despite X" for every possible value of X, very Jewish Voice for Peace kind of vibe.
c.f. this for some reason (extremely not Jewish at all, isn't equinox free association fun?): https://johnksamsonmusic.bandcamp.com/track/postdoc-blues
from the album Winter Wheat
My favorite opening line was in Roger Zelazny's Trumps of Doom.
"It's a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try and kill you."
Doctor Doom Toots as he pleases!
@Ambulocetus @eclectech @futurebird
I enjoyed reading them back in the day.
I think about the buried mines most of all. I think that's what it was about... something about violence and how it is transmitted to the next generations.
I couldn't put it down, but I was NOT having a good time.
Grey Area did nothing wrong.
@futurebird @mherbert @kbm0 @eclectech
No? The entire model for weaker beings coexisting with stronger ones is predicated on the guarantee that the strong will not abuse that power. Once you can’t trust that a Mind will not see or manipulate your private thoughts, all trust in them goes out of the window. The Culture as a civilisation would not be possible without that trust. Grey Area would have undermined the entire basis of the civilisation if the other Minds had tolerated it.
@david_chisnall @mherbert @kbm0 @eclectech
But that "the culture" does tolerate it. They just won't center or endorse such actions. But, it's clear that there is awareness of what gray area is doing and no one stops them.
@futurebird @mherbert @kbm0 @eclectech
It is ostracised and not allowed to use its given name. That’s pretty much the harshest penalty that exists in the Culture.
@nickapos @futurebird @mherbert @kbm0 @eclectech
I have lost count of the number of times I have reread that one. My mind has gone blank, but I also seem to recall that the drone has a cameo in one of the later books.
@nickapos @futurebird @mherbert @kbm0 @eclectech
Mine is in good condition, but mostly because I read my school’s library copy a lot before buying it.
@david_chisnall @mherbert @kbm0 @eclectech
I think if a mind went rouge and started IDK... just destroying stuff they would stop it.
Put a slap drone on it.(slap mind?)
The gray area is bad enough to be shunned but not bad enough to be stopped. Because is giving genocidal men nightmares and violating their privacy a crime worth the effort of preventing? When you have other things to do with your time?
@futurebird @mherbert @kbm0 @eclectech
It’s doing those things outside of the Culture. If it tried anywhere near another Mind, they would be able to stop it. If another civilisation decided they disapproved and destroyed the ship, I doubt the Culture would raise more than a token protest.
One of the later books refers to the fact it was called Meatfucker as the worst level of penalty someone in The Culture can imagine. In a society that exists to provide everyone with a framework for self actualisation, being denied the right to choose your own identity is a huge penalty.
Sleeper Service had the ship equivalent of a slap drone (an escort ship that keeps an eye on it). Greg Area was probably not seen as enough of a threat to warrant it (it’s a small ship, most Orbitals or Rocks would not be threatened by it).
@teamonkey @futurebird @david_chisnall @kbm0 @eclectech
"Special Circumstances" ... maybe that was Banks' point - there are always edge cases somewhere and your ideals can never be 100% effective?
@mherbert @eclectech @futurebird
As long as you noticed the chapter names the first time. I was deeply confused the first time I read that book because I didn’t realise that it started in the middle and went forwards and backwards in time in alternating chapters (made slightly more confusing by one of the chapters being a near-death experience where he has a flashback to even earlier).
I took it on a trip where I had a lot more time than I expected, so probably read it seven or eight times as a teenager. I’ve reread it a few times as an adult, but a few of the later books knocked it down my list of favourite Culture novels.
@mherbert @eclectech @futurebird
The clue is the chapter numbers. The forwards timeline has Arabic numbers that count up, the backwards timeline has Roman numerals that count down. Once you notice this, it makes sense. I tried once reading it in chronological order but it’s less good: the backwards bits of the story have revelations that explain things in the forward timeline and are introduced at the important point in the narrative.
@eclectech @futurebird @mherbert
My English teacher introduced me to The State of the Art. I read the other early Culture novels before trying some of the without-the-M ones. I think Whit is the only one I enjoyed enough to reread. They were mostly good in the ‘I understand and admire the technical skill required to write this’ sense and not in the ‘I enjoy this’ sense.
@mherbert @futurebird I think there's a whole grey area tbh. I reckon The Bridge could have gone out with the M. as well, and would have worked.
And I love The Bridge, but that is definitely influenced by the fact I lived near the actual bridge for a while, and also love that.
@mherbert @futurebird I commuted by train from Fife to Edinburgh for a while, and had to go over the bridge.
Best. Commute. Ever.
myrmepropagandist
eclectech
Nonya Bidniss
64 Islands Aroha Cooperative
Return of Aadmaa
m'ughes
Arratoon
Diane
Octorine
Ambulocetus
Malcolm Herbert
Ken Milmore
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
nickapos
James T Monkey
Janice in GA
Brian McCallister
David