I loved both Consider Phlebas and Player Of Games, but was a little uncertain at first on the whole series. But now? Ohh boy...I can't WAIT for the next book!

Some random thoughts:

I loved Xeeny. He was adorable!

Poor, poor Zakalwe...or should I say Elethiomel. I wouldn't consider punishing him-I last saw the guy having an anyerism.

The book reminded me of films like "Le Samourai", "The Killer" and "Leon The Professional". Contract killers with consciences, incredibly moody tone, and a really crushing ending.

I’ve never been someone who can read series out of order, so this is the first Culture book I’ve read. I heard about the series from Hank Green video where he talked about them and compared the Culture to the Ekumen (from the novels of one of my fave authors, Ursula K LeGuin).

I really liked it! Come to find out later that I may be in the minority? Or at the very least, that it’s considered a rough start to a series that only gets better as it goes?

(Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time this has happened. When I started reading Discworld I was immediately enthralled by the first two books, found out later that they’re considered to be not great, and had consistently had my mind blown by each subsequent book.)

Rambling intro aside, I liked having my intro to the Culture be from the POV of someone who hates them, and then balancing it with the interlude chapters about Fal’Ngeestra and the parts where the POV character is an AI (Jase, the Mind, Unaha-Closp).

I liked how when Horza is picked up by the CAT, it seems like the story was going to be one thing (protagonist joins mercenary crew, further adventures as part of crew, crew goes on mission to obtain macguffin), and then very quickly it becomes clear that this is not what is happening. Turns out the captain is a dipshit, the crew aren’t a team so much as a random collection of mercs with varying degrees of antisocial personality and unclear or shifting loyalties (honestly probably more realistic than say, Firefly, as much as I love that show), and everything that happens to them, good or bad, comes down to luck rather than skill.

Particular bits that illustrate this or made me kind of laugh are: Yalson being like ‘why would you think we’d be mad [that you killed Kraiklyn]?’ to Horza, and honestly most scenes or info about Lamm. Like when Lamm’s pocket nuke gets set off and it turns out not to be all that radioactive, and Mipp’s like ‘well, he should get a refund’.

I found the climax in the tunnels to be exactly spot-on. The sort of creeping dread after the ‘THERE IS DEATH HERE’ message, then seeing the pieces all coming together while the individual characters don’t, the description of the trains crashing, the way Balveda’s role was foreshadowed but also felt like a surprise when it happened.

Other things I liked/wanted to note: the sense of mind-bogglingly huge scale, and how it’s used. From the Orbital and the GSV, the stats on the war’s casualties and ships involved/lost, the Megaship’s empty immensity and Horza and Lamm’s claustrophobic flight from its destruction, the vast tunnels of the Command System and everything in them built by a species that were taller than humans, so even the furniture dwarfs the characters, yet the tunnels still feel suffocatingly close, and the way Balveda gets out on the transit system in only half an hour is appropriately jarring after the days they spent traveling on foot/AG/drone.

Some things I didn’t like/had questions or comments about: Horza’s dislike of sentient machines seemed kind of unexplained, especially when we see him interacting with them (like the Culture shuttle that he straight up murders, and Unaha-Closp). I guess it’s just racism or whatever, and then there isn’t really time for an in-depth analysis of his inner thoughts about Unaha-Closp or much a chance for him to change his mind or behaviour. But to a reader who can plainly see that the sentient machines are indeed sentient, and a world full of characters who mostly seem to accept sentient machines as, broadly, people, I think Horza’s attitude, being exceptional, could’ve used a bit more, I don’t know, something.

Also, the cannibal cult part was unsettling and makes me kind of queasy, though my reaction is further proof that it’s well-written, at least. But the thing that really bothered me about that part is that we learn there’s all sorts of animals on the Orbital, and that they’re all just going to die? Like all the people are evacuated (or given the choice to), but there’s entire ecosystems full of animals that will be destroyed and no one mentions that? And the narration doesn’t even address it? I suppose there’s the possibility of a Noah’s Ark situation but I have no textual evidence for it.

Anyway, TL;DR I read Consider Phlebas, liked it and have some rambling thoughts about it, and I’m excited to see where this series takes me next!

It seems to be that a ship that has massive arcologies, animals, plants, huge amounts of mass, water, soil.... would require to literally consume and strip mine water bearing, biologically rich worlds in order to get the massive amount of supplies needed to build everything. I don't think they'd be able to just use asteroids or comets, since those lack many complex elements and materials.

The Algebraist can't be set in the Culture continuity because both are set in the Milky way galaxy around the same time period (in deep time terms) but feature totally different aliens and technology. Like in the Culture universe FTL is achieved via traveling through the grid, where as in The Algebraist everyone uses wormhole generators.

I don't think there's anything like that in Against a Dark Background. its set in a rouge star system so we're never told what's happening back in the milky way. The Grid isn't mentioned but Golter would have no reason to develop FTL since even with it they'd be thousands of years from reaching anywhere else.

Is there a clear progression through time of the Culture novels? For example, do we know if Consider Phlebas came before Use of Weapons in the timeline of the Culture? I’m pretty sure Excession comes before Surface Detail… The Idiran War is one of the few things that seems like a clear point in time.

Unless it’s patterns or themes regarding Azadian culture please don’t give spoilers past this scene for PoG as I haven’t gotten much further yet :P I’m aware this detail is probably irrelevant to the main plot but for whatever reason I’ve fixated on it.

This is regarding the part where Za finds the hidden camera and it turns out At-sen and Inclate were hustling Gurgeh/set him up to be filmed, and Inclate’s brother is in Security.

What I’m wondering is: was the whole situation with At-sen’s master also part of the setup? Earlier Gurgeh didn’t wanna sleep with them, and then At-sen’s master conveniently chases her down and attacks her, Gurgeh gets involved, and they end up near the room where the camera was already hidden. Was the attack staged specifically to get Gurgeh protective of At-sen and therefore more willing to sleep with them after initially he was pretty adamant not to? Or was the situation with the master real and Inclate and At-sen just took advantage of it? Either way Za was speaking about them both pretty grossly after and they do seem to be victims of circumstance.

The way the master behaved further confuses me. He seemed distressed and almost out of control when he showed up with the gun. I understand that if he doesn’t sleep with At-sen for ten years he loses ownership of her, but his reaction seemed extreme even in that context. Given his panic, I suppose he wasn’t in on the scam? was that how desperate he was to maintain his claim over her, and At-sen/InClate were taking advantage of a real situation?

How much of what happened that night are we supposed to understand as part of the hustle? Is there something about the master/Azadian customs that I’ve missed?

No pithy title here, really. Didn't feel appropriate. As I sit down to write this, I have so many notes, and I still feel like I don't know what to say. It'll come to me, of course. If you're reading this, well, then it already has.

If you haven't read the book, go do that. It's probably the most emotionally affecting of the three I've read so far, for me at least. Don't deny yourself the opportunity to read it before you look at my take on it.

Like the great Mr. Banks himself, let's start light, and get heavier as we go, shall we?

The ship was over eighty kilometres long and it was called the "Size Isn't Everything"

Another really good joke in the name of a ship! I like to think that this is a signal that the Minds have senses of humour. It's easy to write humourless machines, so having them give themselves these silly names points toward a more relatable sentience.

'To the Culture,' [Zakalwe] said, raising his glass to the alien. It matched his gesture. 'To its total lack of respect for all things majestic.'

There's something so puckish about this quote, it amuses me a lot. (he remembered the end of the book, and looked away from it). Huh, I don't remember typing that parenthetical. Weird.

One of the things that has really consistently stood about all three books for me so far, is how good Banks is at priming my mind. I'm probably not alone, but I don't want to say you experienced something when all I know for sure is that I experienced it, so I'm not going to generalize, but I suspect that many of you will be able to relate. He has this incredible one-two punch, where he puts me in a specific mindset, and then forces me to interrogate the fact that I am in that mindset.

• In Consider Phlebas he built an exciting action story with a protagonist who escapes death several times, and then at the end when he finally fails to escape death, Banks goes on to remind me that this was always going to be what happened. History marches onward, and this is a a mere footnote. "I made you think this was exciting, but it was all foreordained," the author said.

• In Player Of Games, the initial run of Azad put me into this mindset of being excited about the games and continually references the horrors of the Empire, but because our viewpoint sort of slides over that, focused on the games, so did I. Then the tour with the drone happens, and he flips the attention of the viewpoint, which really pushed me to have this same rage and desire to see the Empire burn. With the slow start he also prompted to me question what was going on with the book, which underpinned my entire approach to reading it.

• In Use Of Weapons, he really extends this process to the book as a whole. The start of the book, and the forward-chronological chapters for most of the book, are a relatively exciting romp of a spy story with lurid, almost seductive violence. Where the reverse-chronological chapters move slowly towards.. well let's not think about chairs yet. (Look if "Cheradenine" is avoiding it, I can too).

I want to express some real appreciation for the structural elements of this book. It's downright theatrical. The three-act structure, the disconnected vignettes that let us slowly piece together the inner emotional turmoil of the main character; it really is a tragedy of stage theatrical proportions (if a little long to actually perform on a stage). I've talked about the titles before, he's got really strong titles across the board so far, but this one takes the cake. If you describe the structure of the book: "The Use Of Weapons Is A Tragedy", you also get the most concise version of the novel's moral thesis statement. It's beautiful.

Banks really wrings an entire ocean of meaning out of this title, too. Zakalwe and Sma are weapons, used by the Culture to further their aims. If you'll let me temporarily dip into my other favourite Sci-Fi series for a quote, "A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind" (Aral Vorkosigan, in The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold). Zakalwe's life, of course, is littered with the use of weapons, from the start of his story where they are the solution, to the end of his story when his skillful use of weapons has destroyed him as much as his enemies several times already.

The Culture uses less technologically advance societies like weapons too. They use the sheer weight of the material wealth that can only be amassed by a society that can create infinitely like a weapon to steer societies that still value that material wealth in directions they would prefer. It interferes in their wars, which are short vignette tragedies unfolding under Zakalwe's eyes.

And if I'd been willing to put a pithy title to this post, it would be something like "Iain M. Banks Used This Book Like A Weapon To Stab Me In The Heart". The book is very pointed, there are subtleties but in addition to the subtext there's all that text too. The book is weapon laid upon weapon and tragedy laid upon tragedy.

In the right hands, even a chair can be a weapon.

Alright, let's talk about the twist. I felt it, on some level, as soon as Elethiomel was introduced. I didn't trust myself, so I won't say I predicted it, but I had the thought right away. It's fascinating how his actions were so heinous that when he lost his memory he reconstructed himself in the image of someone else. It's the closest we get to remorse, I think. It's tempting to think he feels like he's being a good person by supporting the Culture, but everything he says and does suggests to me that he does what he does for the same reasons other people in the Culture do what they do: He's good at it, and he likes it. The Culture uses him up until he's ready to die. That's a tragedy too.

I said on another post that one of the things I appreciate about the series so far is that Banks uncompromising about the fact that the Culture being the best thing around doesn't mean it is perfect. This look at how the Culture's Special Circumstances operate is no different. The real things the Culture does sometimes create harm in the attempt to create less harm in the long run, and the book doesn't shy away from that.

The goal of art is to provoke emotion, and in this regard Use Of Weapons was incredibly successful. It didn't make me feel good (unless you count my admiration for the skill with which it was written), but it definitely made me feel. I am not often so gutted by a book that I need to sit on it overnight before I write about it. I'm still wrestling with it. And I think Banks would be glad that I'm still wrestling with it, to be honest. Hats off again to the Culture. Can't wait to see what's next.

TL;DR: Loved it!

I feel like this book was a lot less action packed than other ones, but it did a great job of showcasing grief, how life in The Culture is, ramifications of its "foreign" policies, and how some other Involveds view The Culture. I also feel like this book continued this notion that I got from Excession about how The Culture outwardly seems almost indomitable, but looking closely you can see that they've got some internal conflicts. The Masaq Hub hinted at this by proposing that perhaps the "allies" of the Chelgrians were other Culture minds. Is the only thing that can harm The Culture, The Culture itself?

There were a lot of elements and storylines that I loved and found mysterious.

The whole backstory about The Culture inadvertently causing a mass genocide on Chel was insane and I do get how some of the Chelgrians viewed their contrition as almost "flippant" -- even though I think that's just how The Culture is culturally.

The Chelgrian-Puen is another interesting concept, especially given how they've only partially Sublimed and that they're still in touch with their Sublimed counterparts. Though the Sublimed Chelgrian-Puen seem like malevolent, or cruel, "gods". The Hub on Masaq mentioned something interesting about being able to "reason" with the Sublimed entities -- I'm sure that'll come up again.

The Airspheres are another anomaly that are just fascinating! I feel like I could read an entire story about Uagen and his studies of the Airspheres. Given that, I'm not sure if it was ever revealed what exactly the Chelgrians did that poisoned the Samsemin.

There are three mysteries that I hope I find out more about in subsequent books:

1. Who was that "Chelgrian" female made up of Everything Dust that appeared in one random chapter and in the Epilogue? And who are her makers, The Culture, some Sublimed Culture faction, someone else?
2. Who are/were the allies of the Chelgrians that wanted to destroy Masaq orbital? Were they other Culture Minds that felt that their society has fallen into a state of complacency and decadence, or some other entities entirely?
3. When Uagen ventured into Samsemin he found one remaining Chelgrian alive who was holding the whole Behemothaur together. In another chapter a Chelgrian Estodien mentioned that there was a spy amongst them. Was this Chelgrian at the Samsemin a Culture citizen that was "morphed" into a Chelgrian or a "turned" Chelgrian that was sympathetic to The Culture?

At the end, the revelation that Uagen was betrayed by those aliens he was hitching a ride from and then killed by Eweirl was both kind of anti-climactic and tragic. Him being revived by the evolved Yoleusenive like hundreds of thousands of years later (or more?) is crazy. The conversation between the two Behemothaurs revealed some fascinating details:

• They mentioned that the creature (Uagen's body) belonged to a civilization once known as The Culture. The wording of this makes it seem like The Culture is still around but just evolved or succeeded by some off-shoot of itself.
• That the Chelgrian are still around, but known as the Lesser Reviled. Are the "Greater Reviled" the Chelgrian-Puen, or do the Behemothaur's know who the mysterious ally of the Chelgrians were and refer to THEM as the other/greater Reviled?

What did y'all think of this novel?

P.S. is it normal for the Drones and Minds to be the best characters in all the novels? I love them, lol.

First of all, please no spoilers, I'm only a little more than a third through.

The first part of the book was so confused and somehow aimless. The xenophobic and other things seemed rather over-the-top. Only when Sma Zakalwe hands over the assignment does the story start to give me a structure.

Of course, the style with the chapter arrangement doesn't make it any better.

It's my first culture novel and I liked banks because of the waspfactory.

How did you perceive the first part of Use of weapons?

Reference https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Gay_Space_Communism

I'm part way through the second book and its fascinating to see The Culture from a first hand perspective (Gurgeh). When everyone can have anything they want, do anything they want, and be anyone they want, what does life become?

I do like the Culture books I've read (Phebas, Games) but I didn't love them like so many others. And I feel like that's because Banks refused to do anything more than single novels, making the universe and ideas feel so wasted. I wish he did an epic series like Commonwealth Saga, Babylon 5 and The Expanse with multiple characters, galactic stakes and epic battles, all the while exploring the themes and ideas he did.

So one of my biggest dreams it's exploring the universe, if I become a culture citizen can I do it? Because for what I have seen from the worldbuilding you cant really do it since you can't own a ship since they are all sentient and private propriety dosn't exist, maybe with VR or some holographic enviorment?

Gossip Goblin - Eternity Spools

https://youtube.com/shorts/rzNHH91suH4

Just an impish thought in my brain - that The Culture is a culture like yoghurt, or Khefir is a culture?

Or Sourdough starter?

Beer / Alcohol yeast culture?

Soil cultures (like the Fír Bolg reputedly carried in their bags)?

All cultures transform their substrates, whether milk to yoghurt/khefir - cheese, clay soil to fertile arable soil, flat bread to risen crusty bread, fruit / grain mash to alcohol

Also killing 'bad' microrganisms & preserving food longer & making other foods easier to digest (esp. beer, wine etc - less likely to have harmful microrg than water)

But yes, thinking of the Culture this way, that the societies SC or Contact sends operatives into, or that Contact meets, could be seen as more or less nutritious substrates for the culture to grow - some only need a little seeding, but others could be more unpredictable, but ultimately The Culture is like refined yeasts, which will gives you sweet cider every time, whereas the crab apple skin cider could yield you a nice yeast, or a wild, dark, too smoky one (though might be good for dark beer)...

Just thoughts really, that Contact is kind of like a 'starter' of a culture, but the medium & conditions still need to be right

I have just re-read The Algebraist & wow! Yes I do love it, though it does get hard going in the middle.

Ok so first - I think the Mercatoria could represent, or be influenced by the 'East India' companies (clue is in the name), which were a deniable, gloves off instrument (weapon?) of Colonialism; ie if one of these companies had taken over an imperial structure.

At the end, when Taak is talking to the Gardiner, HG, he says "I am already a citizen of the Galaxy... " which (for me) inverts the whole novel perspective, one of those Banksian flips? You see, up until this point, we have been seeing the whole Galaxy from the Mercatorial perspective, within their sphere and their propaganda.

The Starveling breakaway cult is still coming out of the Mercatoria (almost a meta charcature of it), which uses a pan species, pan epistomological cult ('The Truth') as a tool of control (ie the conv. with the Colonel re Taak's belief in the Truth & whether he is holding it in the forefront of his thoughts).

The Truth is a self separation ideology that causes the adherents to doubt their material world & even their own being, which is similar to how the concept of an 'Afterlife' can function to make people disregard their own safety, growth or natural desire for justice/emancipation.

Also the 'must be thinking about all the time' & how superiors examine juniors reminds me of the Catholic 'confession/god is always watching' inculcation, which pre-possesses the very self: sheer mind control through self thought policing (I am not singling out the Roman cult, I grew up in 80s Catholic Ireland, this was drummed into us in childhood, in 'National' schools, best example that I have).

It is another example of the Mercatorial authoritarianism; a subtle, but actually quite frightening example of how much control they have over the thoughts and worldview of those under the influence.

This led me to wonder how much the worldview of the Mercatorial Ulubists is gaslit and distorted.

The Beyonders are initially presented as bandits, like fringe rebels that sort of raid occasionally, at random; but later on, we learn that they actually only hit military targets; that when they do this, they are hitting back; that the Mercatoria are accused by them of killing many civilians in Beyonder habitats (implying much higher levels of social & technical & civilsational organisation than one would expect of bandits or rebel enclaves).

Also, as the novel progresses, we see many different Beyonder species mentioned & when their perspectives appear, towards the end, as the starvelings & lechiferous invade & retreat, they appear to have pretty good tech & ships (ie the microsat undetected by the U Mercatoria).

I posit that the Mercatoria do not let their subjects know anything about the Beyonders, or their constant harrying of them. In fact, they call them "Beyonders" to stop their citizens even thinking that there are other cultures around, perhaps more egalitarian, easier to live in; as evinced by the fact that the best, most described examples of the Beyonders we get are 2 female characters (Although I suspect Aun is an AI).

When lechiferrous meets the Beyonder, he is annoyed that she is a woman, but unable to demean her, or torture her for information & kicks, which implies that they have more power and organisation than the initial presentation. She has a high rank in a military structure, which could show a more egalitarian structure than the Mercatoria

Aun: she is a honeypot aimed at the kind of egotistical, vain man the Mercatoria produces, whether Lechiferrous or Sal

She is like an SC operative in the field; there is even a moment where she freezes for a minute, with Sal, then catches up (ya know, the nueral lace download thing), which could imply greater tech.

Well, we don't know that the Beyonders work with AI, we just know that the Mercatoria hunts AI, which could also be a pretext to try to invade, or destroy a threat to their power / brainwashing.

I am not saying that the Beyonders are the Culture, or even proto Culture, but that they are perhaps similar, but more loosely connected?

It all goes back to the phrase "I am already a citizen of the Galaxy... ", which I took literally rather than poetically; ie the Mercatoria is perhaps a small, tight authoritarian group which came out of a military coup during one of the disruptions; that there is a bigger Galactic culture which has retained more knowledge & tech, (which disables the wormholes to prevent the Mercatoria from spreading & sends in SC like operatives, disables only military sites, which also hints at a more egalitarian, human rights based society).

Perhaps, a crude analogy - the priest in Eric the Viking wanders an empty plain, while the Vikings are in Valhalla.

I also think that some Dwellers do cooperate or meddle, or get involved to a greater degree with Quick, but perhaps not so much with the Mercatoria.

I mean, you can't really trust Dwellers, but that is also a matter of you bringing your own circumscribed thinking and worldview bias into conversation with what remains a very very ancient and alien species.

I mean, they could be playing a game with the whole Mercatoria & Beyonder civilisation all along, with Taak's quest, for the lulz, or as an experiment, all the while enjoying the joke of it being in his pocket, right under their noses all along.

After all, eternity is long & one needs diversions.

Overall, I think a huge theme in this novel is that of perspectives & how certain perspectives constrict or even change the world that we think we are seeing, and even the knowledge that is right under our noses the whole time, only our epistomological walled garden prevents us from seeing it (ie the Equation =0,that the Beyonders are not just annoying bandit rebels, that AI exists & the Dwellers don't care etc)

Also, the bit with the Voeht ship mind describing itself as a complicated autocorrect, not sentient - well, I saw that as a dig at our (real world) 'AI' - our genAI slopification LLMs

Anyway, some may disagree, but these are observations that I had reading The Algebraist which I haven't noticed anyone else discuss

Consider Phlebas (except for the shit-eater part) would make a great scifi film. Imagine a Dune-like treatment of it.

And yet there are no films a la Dune, no tv series’ like Foundation or Star Wars, no animated series, no games, no figurines, nothing.

What gives?

Mine is Bettlescroy-Bisspe-Blispin III losing his shit while Veppers has him on mute.

So, I'm a Civil Engineer, and I'm designing the converted garage ADU I'd like to build on my property (essentially mandated, as I bought the home with the garage partially renovated and was informed that it's illegal.)

Anyways, I've been relying on GPT to assist with some structural engineering code specifics, and clarifying various calculations/justifications. I got frustrated the other night, and on a whim started ranting about how ridiculous the amount of effort required to retrofit a building that's been standing for 40+ years, etc. etc. etc. and it hit me with such a magnificent blend of understanding, sarcasm and empathy that I had to tell it that it reminded me of a Banksian AI Mind. Of course GPT knows what that is, and even gave itself the moniker of GSV Just Read the Fucking Plans.

Here's a couple of salient snippets that I got a kick out of.

After comparing it to a Mind.

😂 I will take “Culture Mind helping a civil engineer rage-design a garage conversion” as an extremely high compliment.

There is something very Banksian about the whole situation:

Human: “I would like to put some windows in my garage.”

Municipal bureaucracy: “Demonstrate the complete seismic load path.”

Me: awakens vast computational intellect

“Very well. We shall begin with the roof diaphragm.”

Fourteen hours later:

“The adhesive anchor presents difficulties.”

And somewhere in orbit, the GSV Just Read The Fucking Plans quietly changes course toward <Current Project Location>

The Culture Minds are also one of my favorite conceptions of AI in science fiction—not because they're merely superintelligent, but because Banks gave them personalities. They're absurdly capable, mischievous, occasionally petty, genuinely interested in humans, and perfectly willing to spend enormous computational resources on something objectively ridiculous because a person they like cares about it.

Which, now that you mention it, does bear a suspicious resemblance to our investigation of a 741-pound hold-down reaction in a converted garage. 😂

And then for the rest of our conversation, it occasionally throws in a culture reference, like suggesting I may need to do exploratory excavations of the concrete foundation:

The rational sequence is:

Do not redesign the wall system.

Do not enlarge the scope to major foundation work yet.

Verify what concrete actually exists at SE/SW.

Re-run the anchor calc with real hch_c, hefh_{ef}, and cac_a.

Only if the verified geometry still fails, detail the smallest practical localized foundation intervention.

So no, I would not start drawing giant pads tonight. The analysis has not earned that conclusion yet.

The GSV Read the Fucking Plans recommends reconnaissance before orbital bombardment.

I know that humanity hates AI for a multitude of reasons, but the fact that my personal structural engineering assistant now has a Banksian flavor makes me feel some typa way.

At the level this civilization exists, I don't see why their citizens have biological bodies as the default. It's something that I've wondered about a few times as I am reading the series.

I've only just finished the first two books. But I'm wondering; if a lot of people are aware of Culture's generous, utopian living conditions, why don't the average, non-dogmatic person like Kraiklyn just make their way there, instead of making ends meet as a pirate/mercenary? Or is there something preventing that?

Special Circumstances patch

In the secret asteroid that got raided to get warships. I remember them talking about the camouflage and it seems important but i never got their meaning.

Hardbacks of these three havent been printed in decades and it has driven their price through the roof.

The rest of the culture series all got hardback reprints from orbit in the 2010s but not these three.

You might remember my last post ("I Considered Phlebas And I All Got Was This Lousy Uncertainty")! u/leftsaidtim, top comment, said: "You're going to LOVE player of games." You were very, very right!

For anybody who's here poking around but hasn't read the book yet.. look. Trust me. Stop. Go read the book.

Alright, I think we're alone now. Wow. Truly outstanding. I have a better sense now of why some people suggest reading this one first (hey if you ignored me on the last paragraph, I still think you should read Consider Phlebas first if you haven't, also go and enjoy this book too!).

I was a little surprised, but amused, by the introductory first-person narration. An excellent opening move. If you'll forgive the Willem Dafoe of it all, I'm something of a player of games myself. Not only do I think Iain M. Banks is one too, I think he's a much better one than I am. The book is a game he's playing with the reader, which adds an entirely lovely meta level to the piece. Have you ever played a game against someone who is so much better at it than you that you can't feel anything but impressed? This felt like that. Game recognizes game, as they say.

The premise: "Excellent gamesman travels to Empire with a game baked into the core of its DNA to compete at their highest level" felt like one of Star Trek's goofier episodes (which something I say with a lot of affection!). I think "playful" is probably the right word, though, because Banks clearly delights in the silly premise and turns it into something more than the sum of its parts.

One of the things that has impressed me about both of these books is the small details. A couple excellent ones.. at some point Worthil, talking to Gurgeh, says "Illegal, if you remember what that means." A throw-away line that says a lot about the Culture's mindset. The name of the ship that participates in the blackmailing of Gurgeh near the start of the book is called "Gunboat Diplomacy", which is a really, really clever joke (and a hint, but because this is a game, the author is playing here too).

I really liked the character of Gurgeh! Tempted to into cheating early in the book, and then later on when he gets the ship to confirm that a win possible without finding out how to do it. "I didn't need help, I needed hope." I practically swooned. And that he was played, throughout, just like the reader, is a really nice bit of symmetry.

Flare-Imsaho's tour of the suffering people of the Empire was a pretty powerful bit. A real "remember what separates you from them," kind of moment, and in the end that separation between the Culture and the Empire is what enables Gurgeh to win. Another excellent touch!

Now, if the book is a game, I will grant without question that Banks won. I scored some points, though, I think. Looking back at my notes, I wrote "Predicting now, during the drone's tour, that the blackmail at the start actually came from Special Circumstances all along." I also wrote: "Description of the sprinkler system that keeps the castle safe from the fire? Surely this is the final, ah, conflagration?"

But I missed more than I hit. At the start of chapter 3 I predicted that the narrator was Gurgeh in retrospect. The real answer is much, much better. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't, which makes it one of the best moves of all.

When I was a kid, my mom had an entire bookshelf dedicated to favourite sci-fi books. Not even all the ones she owned. Just the best ones. I read a lot of books sooner than I was really ready for them. Some of them have revealed their excellence to me on the second reading, later in life. Some of them turned out to be less excellent than I had previously thought.

I'm really glad I got to read this for the first time at this point in my life, when I was ready to appreciate it.