[Illuyankas]

Spoiler

He is, and Ferbin is properly dead - the only place that could have taken a backup exploded - but I was only referring to Holse in the brackets. You can see during his trip with the prince that he's making an effort to understand and comprehend all the stuff that's going on, to the point where Xide Hyrlis asks Holse to join him, and I'm suggesting that Holse was also an agent, a newly recruited and trained one during the year he was away, and that the avatoid is his partner and watchdog.

That help?

[Dolorous Menhir]

Sorry, had the wrong end of the stick there.

[Obdigore]

So I read Consider Phlebas... and it was just 'meh'. Does his stuff get better, or is it all about the same level. I could never really connect to any of the characters (except horza, ironically) and how everything went wrong/right/wrong/right/wrong/right was kind of annoying.

[caladanbrood]

Consider Phlebas is a good place to start, as it's the earliest book (both timeline and when published), but it has a different style to most of the others to be honest. I much prefer Player of Games and Use of Weapons.

If I recall, the Culture is much more advanced in the next book. I haven't read it for years, mind you


I would recommend trying one of the two I mentioned, and if you still don't like them, Banks probably isn't for you.

[polishgenius]

caladanbrood;270892 said:

Eck. Algebraist was just entirely uninteresting. I struggled to finish that book, I'll be honest. Probably because to me, Banks = Culture, and as soon as you take that away I've always got that thing in the back of my mind that says "Dammit, this would be so much better if Diziet Sma and Skaffen Amtiskaw turned up on the next page..."

I dunno. Against a Dark Background is fantastic (although it's quite Culture-y) anyway. I thought the chief problem with the Algebraist was that it was just too messy, plotwise, and it seemed very stop-start. Plus the aliens, which I forget the name of, just got on my tits after a while.

[Sir Thursday]

I really loved the Algebraist - lots of bits in it to make me laugh, and I quite liked the Dwellers (was that their name?). Plus Archimandrite Lusiferous is an awesome name, even if he is a unbelievably evil person (but then I suppose that's part of the fun - using an enemy's head that has been severed from their body but somehow been kept alive as a punchbag? Whyever not?)

Sir Thursday

[Cougar]

I think Consider Phlebas builds a really interesting universe, the other books then go on to actually be good stories. I understand the point about not caring about the characters though.

[caladanbrood]

polishgenius;308569 said:

I dunno. Against a Dark Background is fantastic (although it's quite Culture-y) anyway.

I think I'm quite unusual in that I didn't really enjoy that book. I mean, the Lazy Gun is one of the most awesome sci-fi concepts ever, but the book itself... meh, didn't grip me.

[Binder of Demons]

@ Obdigore
I would say Player of Games is probably the best Banks book for you to read next. If you don't like that as a Culture novel then i don't think you will like his stuff at all.

I have given that to several people to read and all have enjoyed it (and they were not fans of sci-fi, so that's a pretty good barometer I feel).

[stone monkey]

I've said this in other places, but IMO The Algebraist was in need of a damn good editing. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but on occasion it just made me tired...

[Obdigore]

So I just finished 'The Player of Games.'

SPOILERS OMG APT GETS TO USE YOU AS A WHEELCHAIR IF YOU READ THEM COMPLAIN ABOUT IT!

Spoiler

So I thought, after Gurgeh was shown the picture of the ex-and-again Contact Drone's outer casing, he figured out that was the Drone with him. I know I did, but I thought Gurgeh did as well. And then at the end the Drone thinks that Gurgeh didn't figure it out.

Much more interesting, in my opinion, than Consider Plebeas, but I still like Fantasy much more than Sci-Fi. Will probably pick up a couple more Ian Banks books since I am pretty much out of decent fantasy, any thoughts? I have heard 'Use of Weapons', anything else by him which is very good?

[Dolorous Menhir]

"Use of Weapons" is the best. There are a few other Culture books, but they each have their own kind of unique styles, and don't appeal the same way to everyone. "Excession" is really good, and so is "Look to Windward" (leave that one until you've read the others though). You'll probably be ready to read "Use of Weapons" again by this point.

The most recent, "Matter," is ok, but not wonderful.

[Sir Thursday]

I'm a big fan of The Algebraist, as stated above, but I know that a lot of people felt that it needed a bit more editing.

I second Use of Weapons and Excession. Haven't read Look to Windward in ages so I can't comment on that.


Sir Thursday

[caladanbrood]

Aye, DM has it right, Use of Weapons, Excession and Look to Windward are my other favourites as well:)

The ship conversations in Excession in particular are great fun

Though to be honest, I just read them in order of publication, depends if you demand the best and don't care about the rest or not.

[Mort]

Have to admit that Look to Windward was a bit of a 'grower' for me. Call it being deployed but the psychology of a former warrior and the choices made seem more immediate now that I have been deployed to a conflict zone.

Excession is the best big old space opera he has written; the Minds and thier conversation realy make that one for me!

[Nevuk]

I didn't care for Consider Phlebas an especial amount, but Use of Weapons is one of my favorites. Player of Games I found delightfully entertaining, but kind of superfluous much of the time. As far as his Iain Banks works go, I rather enjoyed the Bridge, even if one of the threads was too annoying for me to even try and read.

[Obdigore]

I read 'Excession' and enjoyed it... although the ending was confusing for me, spoilered questions.

Spoiler

So the excession was obviously a craft from another universe, and interesting judging by the report at the end. Anyway, I thought that the Sleeper Service was the one that rammed the energy field/line thingie, and I thought all the other minds think its dead, and then there is a chapter that is about 3 lines long that is between the Sleeper Service and 2 other minds, awed at what they see... am I mistaken, did I miss something, or was that part of the ending just really unclear?

[Illuyankas]

Spoiler

No, the Sleeper Service was fine and heading off to wherever with social-phobic dude, the ship captain, whatsherface with the baby and the child. The Grey Area was the one who hit the grid and broke through to meet up with the Excession, Peace Makes Plenty and the others.

Names might be inaccurate, it's been a while since I read it.

[Obdigore]

Oh yea, I had the name wrong.

Spoiler

Who was the '3rd' ship to break through? the culture-splinter-explorer group is 1, I thought the other one just got teleported 30 light-somethings away, not sent to a different galaxy?

[Illuyankas]

Spoiler

Peace Makes Plenty was first, then the Culture ship that was teleported hung around the Excession with two more ships from the PMP's explorer fleet thing (Elench?). They got taken over while the culture ship was 'ported away. The Grey Area was last. One of the four never got to say anything in that little end paragraph thing.

Damn memory.