I've found Simmons less then stellar. Hyperion is probably his best, but even it suffers from some weak stories and Fall of Hyperion just can't stick the landing.
The Terror is the only other book of his I've read that I thought was any good and that one has some great ideas and some great parts, but is so all over the place in what it wants to be it's almost incoherent.
What stories do you consider weak? The Detective is by far my least favorite, but I enjoyed or loved all the rest of them.
That's the specific one I'm thinking of that was weak. Unfortunately, it sets up alot of the less then stellar follow through in Fall of Hyperion.
Yeah, Brawne being one of the main characters in Fall was pretty sucky. I didn't enjoy that book a lot, except for the space-opera-y stuff around the ousters. It lacked the feel of the first one, and didn't make up for it with a superior plot or characters or conclusion.
So my omnibus of Steven Brust's Taltos stories just arrived from secondhand Amazon order yay (well, the first one, Jhereg... has Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla... also have the omnibus Taltos and Athyra editions on the way as well, so that's ... 7 smallish novels of reading?)
The Taltos books have been on my to-read list for a stupidly long time and nexus started pointedly reminding me I'd said I was going to get them and then hadn't yet, once I sat him down and made him read Lies of Locke Lamora, so I figured I'd pick them up as a between-other-books read. Not going to lie, feeling the tiniest bit daunted that there's a full page pronunciation guide in the front of the book... but I also get the impression I should be listening to some gypsypunk with these.
I've found Simmons less then stellar. Hyperion is probably his best, but even it suffers from some weak stories and Fall of Hyperion just can't stick the landing.
The Terror is the only other book of his I've read that I thought was any good and that one has some great ideas and some great parts, but is so all over the place in what it wants to be it's almost incoherent.
What stories do you consider weak? The Detective is by far my least favorite, but I enjoyed or loved all the rest of them.
That's the specific one I'm thinking of that was weak. Unfortunately, it sets up alot of the less then stellar follow through in Fall of Hyperion.
Yeah, Brawne being one of the main characters in Fall was pretty sucky. I didn't enjoy that book a lot, except for the space-opera-y stuff around the ousters. It lacked the feel of the first one, and didn't make up for it with a superior plot or characters or conclusion.
Eh, I thought the story as a whole resolved remarkably well. there were some loose ends (mostly the Keats thing, wtf Simmons is with you and that guy?) but the main arc closed up nicely
it does suffer a bit in that it follows up Hyperion. those are big shoes to fill
The Taltos books (well, Dragaera in general since I love the Khaavren books too) are my favorite bite size books.
Yeah, there are a fair number of people who know me and my (a) voracious reading habits and (b) general taste in books who have started to give me the double take when I admit I haven't read them yet so I expect to enjoy them-- the first book is p great so far, but I am not far into it yet.
(I can already tell from the tone that it's a breezy enough read, which is good for me for the moment)
i guess it would be kinda a mystery/thriller/action book that centers around words and language
i knew nothing going in and think the first few chapters were better for it
one of my uber-libertarian friends really liked his Jennifer Government (I still have it sitting on my shelf, mostly unread, it really didn't grab me.)
this one sounds a lot more interesting than JG was, though.
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
It's interesting that a libertarian enjoyed Jennifer government. I seem to remember that it was pretty up front about the world being a satirical dystopia
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It's interesting that a libertarian enjoyed Jennifer government. I seem to remember that it was pretty up front about the world being a satirical dystopia
It seems like it might have appealed to her as more of a statement on how awful the government is, in a general "lol gubmint" way? This would have been freshman year of college for her... Though now that Kalkino mentions it, she was also a NationStates devotee and I wonder if that plays into it. I don't think I got past the first chapter of the book, though. Reading the blurb on the back of the book I can see a few interpretations. There seems to be some "meritocracy" subtext but it is hard to distill from a quick run down. Interesting.
Lexicon definitely looks more engaging, maybe I will try a chapter on Kindle.
Partway into Jhereg already, and yep, it is definitely ripping right along. Considering the age, I can see its cheekbones in a whole bunch of other things I really like, which is awesome.
It's interesting that a libertarian enjoyed Jennifer government. I seem to remember that it was pretty up front about the world being a satirical dystopia
It seems like it might have appealed to her as more of a statement on how awful the government is, in a general "lol gubmint" way? This would have been freshman year of college for her... Though now that Kalkino mentions it, she was also a NationStates devotee and I wonder if that plays into it. I don't think I got past the first chapter of the book, though. Reading the blurb on the back of the book I can see a few interpretations. There seems to be some "meritocracy" subtext but it is hard to distill from a quick run down. Interesting.
Lexicon definitely looks more engaging, maybe I will try a chapter on Kindle.
Partway into Jhereg already, and yep, it is definitely ripping right along. Considering the age, I can see its cheekbones in a whole bunch of other things I really like, which is awesome.
Jennifer Government's okay. It's a stock standard utopia where "citizens" are people with jobs and corporate protection. Everybody else is basically prey for the "citizens". It's definitely not a libertarian fantasy in any way.
The biggest problem is that it goes for a William Gibson feel but the author lacks the writing chops to pull it off. It ends up being one of those books where paper-thin characters walk through pages and pages of worldbuilding.
It's interesting that a libertarian enjoyed Jennifer government. I seem to remember that it was pretty up front about the world being a satirical dystopia
It seems like it might have appealed to her as more of a statement on how awful the government is, in a general "lol gubmint" way? This would have been freshman year of college for her... Though now that Kalkino mentions it, she was also a NationStates devotee and I wonder if that plays into it. I don't think I got past the first chapter of the book, though. Reading the blurb on the back of the book I can see a few interpretations. There seems to be some "meritocracy" subtext but it is hard to distill from a quick run down. Interesting.
Lexicon definitely looks more engaging, maybe I will try a chapter on Kindle.
Partway into Jhereg already, and yep, it is definitely ripping right along. Considering the age, I can see its cheekbones in a whole bunch of other things I really like, which is awesome.
Jennifer Government's okay. It's a stock standard utopia where "citizens" are people with jobs and corporate protection. Everybody else is basically prey for the "citizens". It's definitely not a libertarian fantasy in any way.
The biggest problem is that it goes for a William Gibson feel but the author lacks the writing chops to pull it off. It ends up being one of those books where paper-thin characters walk through pages and pages of worldbuilding.
It's interesting that a libertarian enjoyed Jennifer government. I seem to remember that it was pretty up front about the world being a satirical dystopia
Lucifer's Hammer. I kind of expect seventies SF from old school guys like Larry Niven to be generously larded with sexism and smart, middle-aged white guys winning the day, but boy, the racism really crept up on me. Footfall is far superior and also not horribly cringeworthy.
Lucifer's Hammer. I kind of expect seventies SF from old school guys like Larry Niven to be generously larded with sexism and smart, middle-aged white guys winning the day, but boy, the racism really crept up on me. Footfall is far superior and also not horribly cringeworthy.
Lucifer's Hammer. I kind of expect seventies SF from old school guys like Larry Niven to be generously larded with sexism and smart, middle-aged white guys winning the day, but boy, the racism really crept up on me. Footfall is far superior and also not horribly cringeworthy.
what does he do in it?
I should say 'they', not 'he', because Jerry Pournelle is co-writer. On top of some really awful bullshit scenes where blatant author stand-ins tell goddamn women's libbers what for and are proved right about everything, you have the bad guys, mostly made up of black criminals who talk like the two guys from Airplane teaming up with a bunch of black cannibal ex-military types. Eventually led by a white guy, of course, because he has the organisational skills they lack.
The ending has the middle aged white man good guys defending a nuclear power plant against the hordes of cannibal bad guys with mustard gas, before generously taking on the surviving bad guys as slaves.
Yep. Its pretty fucking amazing. Even for the late seventies, its kinda gobsmacking.
Not every black character is bad. There's a black astronaut who's the first black guy in space.
He dies.
EDIT: nope, got that wrong, he lives (and the other American astronaut dies), and makes a nice speech at the end about how they're keeping slaves because they need them, not because they want to.
....I think that may be the only common Niven book I haven't read. I must have confused it with Footfall or something but I knew about it but never realized I didn't read it.
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Finished off Vicious by VE Schwab this morning.
I wonder if I felt it should have been a comic just because it's about superheroes. I'm really not sure. The book itself is much better than I expected it to be once I realised what it was all about. I even managed to sufficiently suspend disbelief about the setting (there's a big hanging "why now?" over the origin of superpowers that just isn't answered). At it's heart it's a revenge story, and one that is fairly well executed.
The problem is that the two central characters are both cardboard cut outs rather than characters. Both are beautiful and superintelligent but with an inner darkness. I don't think it would have been that hard to flesh them out a little and make them into people. It's a shame really.
And then I started on Flashback (I think) by Dan Simmons because I bought a load of Dan Simmons books off the back of A Winter's Haunting. Thoughts so far: I am deeply uncomfortable with how racist and violent the setting is.
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I've finished the 5 Agent Cormac and 3 Spatterjay books by Neal Asher and then just finished Prador Moon. Spatterjay is the better series, I liked Prador Moon better but it was a bit whiplashy after Orbus.
They're pretty ok, but I want more interaction with the AIs.
Oh man you have picked the wrong Dan Simmons book to read. Back out now, it only gets crazier and more awful. Simmons went bananas a while ago and has been writing crazy stuff on his website for a while. It hasn't stopped him from penning some of his best work, like The Terror, but Flashback is unfiltered nutso garbage.
If you were going to splurge on Simmons books I'd say the highlights are:
Carrion Comfort, doorstop sized tale of horror and mind control and Nazis.
Summer of Night, kids fighting evil in the fifties.
Children of the Night, vampire thriller.
The Dan Kurtz stories, three incredibly hard-boiled crime thrillers.
The Crook Factory, fictional account of Hemingway fighting Nazi spies.
The Terror, the best thing he's written, doomed arctic explorers fighting something terrible in a modern fable.
Song of Kali, creeping horror that guts you in the last twenty pages.
Any any of his short story collections, which are usually excellent.
I can recommend Company from Max Barry, it's a pretty light sendup of corporations and is kinda funny.
Jennifer Government is not his best book, he's improved with each book I think.
Syrup is also quite good, as both that and Company clearly draw on his experience in the corporate world. While he can be hit or miss, his books have a refreshing style compared to a lot of other writers. There's a lot of dark tongue-in-cheek humor.
I've finished the 5 Agent Cormac and 3 Spatterjay books by Neal Asher and then just finished Prador Moon. Spatterjay is the better series, I liked Prador Moon better but it was a bit whiplashy after Orbus.
They're pretty ok, but I want more interaction with the AIs.
Ha, I just did a reread of the Cormac books and started on The Skinner last night.
I'd definitely like a book that deals more with AIs that aren't runcible AIs or ship minds. Gimme more cranky war drones!
Personally I didn't like Prador Moon all that much. Feels a bit too disjointed.
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I've finished the 5 Agent Cormac and 3 Spatterjay books by Neal Asher and then just finished Prador Moon. Spatterjay is the better series, I liked Prador Moon better but it was a bit whiplashy after Orbus.
They're pretty ok, but I want more interaction with the AIs.
Ha, I just did a reread of the Cormac books and started on The Skinner last night.
I'd definitely like a book that deals more with AIs that aren't runcible AIs or ship minds. Gimme more cranky war drones!
Personally I didn't like Prador Moon all that much. Feels a bit too disjointed.
I really like Sniper.
Stories about his hijinks during the war would be a treat.
I can recommend Company from Max Barry, it's a pretty light sendup of corporations and is kinda funny.
Jennifer Government is not his best book, he's improved with each book I think.
Syrup is also quite good, as both that and Company clearly draw on his experience in the corporate world. While he can be hit or miss, his books have a refreshing style compared to a lot of other writers. There's a lot of dark tongue-in-cheek humor.
I just finished Lexicon which is a bit more serious, but it's good. I should read Syrup, they even made a movie out of it!
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LibrarianThe face of liberal fascismRegistered Userregular
I would also recommend Lexicon, it is an entertaining read, haven't read anything else by Max Berry so far.
Recently finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie which won won the Nebula Award, BSFA Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and Locus Award.
I really enjoyed it. Space Opera with AI controlled ships, that have ancillaries, human drones that serve as extensions of the AI mind.
Looking forward to the next book in the series.
Then I was a bit bored last weekend and reread Lords and Ladies and I still think it is the best Discworld novel. I wish the BBC would do a 3 season miniseries on the witches books and cast Olivia Coleman as Margrat Garlick and David Mitchell as Verence.
And I can not believe the amount of not love that Drood is getting. I think it is just a great book and Simmons best. Flashback on the other hand really seems to be his worst.
I can recommend Company from Max Barry, it's a pretty light sendup of corporations and is kinda funny.
Jennifer Government is not his best book, he's improved with each book I think.
I think JG might be his most approachable book though, given that Syrup and Company are both more focused on things that might not click with people who haven't dealt with those kinds of things. But Lexicon was fun.
Machine Man is still my favorite of his, though.
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Reading Iain Banks "the steep approach to Garbadale" right now and really enjoying it. One of his not-SF novels
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
Read Rome Burning by Sophia McDougall. I read the first one a while back and have retained no strong impression of it.
It was alright, if a little confused. The first in the trilogy introduced a couple of scifi/fantasy/magic elements which aren't developed in the second, so you just have two (and only two) characters wandering around with magic powers in an otherwise fairly straight alt-history setting, and this doesn't seem to excite any comment.
I sort of get the impression that it was never intended as a trilogy, so the first one is a fantasy-esque adventure novel about escaped slaves and the second is a quasi political thriller. Then the back quarter or so of the second book feels a lot like the author was struggling to tie things up and instead hurriedly re-introduced some characters from the first book and tried to steer the whole thing back onto that book's apparent trajectory.
I would also recommend Lexicon, it is an entertaining read, haven't read anything else by Max Berry so far.
Recently finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie which won won the Nebula Award, BSFA Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and Locus Award.
I really enjoyed it. Space Opera with AI controlled ships, that have ancillaries, human drones that serve as extensions of the AI mind.
Looking forward to the next book in the series.
Then I was a bit bored last weekend and reread Lords and Ladies and I still think it is the best Discworld novel. I wish the BBC would do a 3 season miniseries on the witches books and cast Olivia Coleman as Margrat Garlick and David Mitchell as Verence.
And I can not believe the amount of not love that Drood is getting. I think it is just a great book and Simmons best. Flashback on the other hand really seems to be his worst.
Am I crazy, or is something just off about the writing in Ancillary Justice? It's not the gender thing, sentences just often don't make sense or are unnecessarily confusing. I had also heard it was a "soft" trilogy, but there was nothing soft about the way the book ended things.
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LibrarianThe face of liberal fascismRegistered Userregular
I would also recommend Lexicon, it is an entertaining read, haven't read anything else by Max Berry so far.
Recently finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie which won won the Nebula Award, BSFA Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and Locus Award.
I really enjoyed it. Space Opera with AI controlled ships, that have ancillaries, human drones that serve as extensions of the AI mind.
Looking forward to the next book in the series.
Then I was a bit bored last weekend and reread Lords and Ladies and I still think it is the best Discworld novel. I wish the BBC would do a 3 season miniseries on the witches books and cast Olivia Coleman as Margrat Garlick and David Mitchell as Verence.
And I can not believe the amount of not love that Drood is getting. I think it is just a great book and Simmons best. Flashback on the other hand really seems to be his worst.
Am I crazy, or is something just off about the writing in Ancillary Justice? It's not the gender thing, sentences just often don't make sense or are unnecessarily confusing. I had also heard it was a "soft" trilogy, but there was nothing soft about the way the book ended things.
I think it was her way of trying to write how an AI with multiple bodies would talk? But I don't remember any sentences that were particularily confusing. In the beginning of the book a lot of things are very vague. Do you have an example maybe?
And yeah, the way it ended felt like the next one would pick up at exactly that point.
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LibrarianThe face of liberal fascismRegistered Userregular
And talking about confusing beginnings, I just started reading The Flame Alphabet today.
The Wasp Factory and The Bridge would be my no-M Banks picks.
I've also read The Crow Road, Canal Dreams, Complicity, and The Business. Sure there are a few more round the house. They're all good stuff.
The Wasp Factory was amazing, but I didn't like Canal Dreams at all. Banks' violent action scenes can sometimes get a bit revenge-porn-y, which I find a bit disconcerting. It seemed like Canal Dreams was just a lead up to that, and it didn't do anything for me except teaching me a little something about the Panama crisis.
Reading Iain Banks "the steep approach to Garbadale" right now and really enjoying it. One of his not-SF novels
The Steep Approach and Crow Road have some strong similarities. I remeber Banks saying in Raw Spirit that Crow Road was the only book he was not completely happy with (he liked the TV adaption far better than his own work.), so it looked like the Steep Approach was a new try at capturing some of the ideas of Crow Road.
The only Banks I've read and didn't like was A Song of Stone, I haven't read the Quarry or Whit yet. (Thought I ordered Whit actually a few days ago, but it turned out to be a study guide to Whit, Crow Road and the Wasp Factory. Downsides of ordering online.)
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Yeah, Brawne being one of the main characters in Fall was pretty sucky. I didn't enjoy that book a lot, except for the space-opera-y stuff around the ousters. It lacked the feel of the first one, and didn't make up for it with a superior plot or characters or conclusion.
The Taltos books have been on my to-read list for a stupidly long time and nexus started pointedly reminding me I'd said I was going to get them and then hadn't yet, once I sat him down and made him read Lies of Locke Lamora, so I figured I'd pick them up as a between-other-books read. Not going to lie, feeling the tiniest bit daunted that there's a full page pronunciation guide in the front of the book... but I also get the impression I should be listening to some gypsypunk with these.
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Eh, I thought the story as a whole resolved remarkably well. there were some loose ends (mostly the Keats thing, wtf Simmons is with you and that guy?) but the main arc closed up nicely
it does suffer a bit in that it follows up Hyperion. those are big shoes to fill
it was good, I recommend it
i guess it would be kinda a mystery/thriller/action book that centers around words and language
i knew nothing going in and think the first few chapters were better for it
Yeah, there are a fair number of people who know me and my (a) voracious reading habits and (b) general taste in books who have started to give me the double take when I admit I haven't read them yet so I expect to enjoy them-- the first book is p great so far, but I am not far into it yet.
(I can already tell from the tone that it's a breezy enough read, which is good for me for the moment)
one of my uber-libertarian friends really liked his Jennifer Government (I still have it sitting on my shelf, mostly unread, it really didn't grab me.)
this one sounds a lot more interesting than JG was, though.
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*for the very small values of playing that are possible with it
Lexicon definitely looks more engaging, maybe I will try a chapter on Kindle.
Partway into Jhereg already, and yep, it is definitely ripping right along. Considering the age, I can see its cheekbones in a whole bunch of other things I really like, which is awesome.
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Jennifer Government's okay. It's a stock standard utopia where "citizens" are people with jobs and corporate protection. Everybody else is basically prey for the "citizens". It's definitely not a libertarian fantasy in any way.
The biggest problem is that it goes for a William Gibson feel but the author lacks the writing chops to pull it off. It ends up being one of those books where paper-thin characters walk through pages and pages of worldbuilding.
That's actually sort of a relief, then.
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Well you know. Libertarians.
Jennifer Government is not his best book, he's improved with each book I think.
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what does he do in it?
I should say 'they', not 'he', because Jerry Pournelle is co-writer. On top of some really awful bullshit scenes where blatant author stand-ins tell goddamn women's libbers what for and are proved right about everything, you have the bad guys, mostly made up of black criminals who talk like the two guys from Airplane teaming up with a bunch of black cannibal ex-military types. Eventually led by a white guy, of course, because he has the organisational skills they lack.
The ending has the middle aged white man good guys defending a nuclear power plant against the hordes of cannibal bad guys with mustard gas, before generously taking on the surviving bad guys as slaves.
Yep. Its pretty fucking amazing. Even for the late seventies, its kinda gobsmacking.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
He dies.
EDIT: nope, got that wrong, he lives (and the other American astronaut dies), and makes a nice speech at the end about how they're keeping slaves because they need them, not because they want to.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I am not sad now.
I wonder if I felt it should have been a comic just because it's about superheroes. I'm really not sure. The book itself is much better than I expected it to be once I realised what it was all about. I even managed to sufficiently suspend disbelief about the setting (there's a big hanging "why now?" over the origin of superpowers that just isn't answered). At it's heart it's a revenge story, and one that is fairly well executed.
The problem is that the two central characters are both cardboard cut outs rather than characters. Both are beautiful and superintelligent but with an inner darkness. I don't think it would have been that hard to flesh them out a little and make them into people. It's a shame really.
And then I started on Flashback (I think) by Dan Simmons because I bought a load of Dan Simmons books off the back of A Winter's Haunting. Thoughts so far: I am deeply uncomfortable with how racist and violent the setting is.
They're pretty ok, but I want more interaction with the AIs.
If you were going to splurge on Simmons books I'd say the highlights are:
Carrion Comfort, doorstop sized tale of horror and mind control and Nazis.
Summer of Night, kids fighting evil in the fifties.
Children of the Night, vampire thriller.
The Dan Kurtz stories, three incredibly hard-boiled crime thrillers.
The Crook Factory, fictional account of Hemingway fighting Nazi spies.
The Terror, the best thing he's written, doomed arctic explorers fighting something terrible in a modern fable.
Song of Kali, creeping horror that guts you in the last twenty pages.
Any any of his short story collections, which are usually excellent.
I think you've already read Hyperion.
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Syrup is also quite good, as both that and Company clearly draw on his experience in the corporate world. While he can be hit or miss, his books have a refreshing style compared to a lot of other writers. There's a lot of dark tongue-in-cheek humor.
Ha, I just did a reread of the Cormac books and started on The Skinner last night.
I'd definitely like a book that deals more with AIs that aren't runcible AIs or ship minds. Gimme more cranky war drones!
Personally I didn't like Prador Moon all that much. Feels a bit too disjointed.
I really like Sniper.
Stories about his hijinks during the war would be a treat.
I just finished Lexicon which is a bit more serious, but it's good. I should read Syrup, they even made a movie out of it!
Recently finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie which won won the Nebula Award, BSFA Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and Locus Award.
I really enjoyed it. Space Opera with AI controlled ships, that have ancillaries, human drones that serve as extensions of the AI mind.
Looking forward to the next book in the series.
Then I was a bit bored last weekend and reread Lords and Ladies and I still think it is the best Discworld novel. I wish the BBC would do a 3 season miniseries on the witches books and cast Olivia Coleman as Margrat Garlick and David Mitchell as Verence.
And I can not believe the amount of not love that Drood is getting. I think it is just a great book and Simmons best. Flashback on the other hand really seems to be his worst.
I think JG might be his most approachable book though, given that Syrup and Company are both more focused on things that might not click with people who haven't dealt with those kinds of things. But Lexicon was fun.
Machine Man is still my favorite of his, though.
The only not-M. Banks I've read is Transition, and that was decidedly with a scifi flavor.
It was alright, if a little confused. The first in the trilogy introduced a couple of scifi/fantasy/magic elements which aren't developed in the second, so you just have two (and only two) characters wandering around with magic powers in an otherwise fairly straight alt-history setting, and this doesn't seem to excite any comment.
I sort of get the impression that it was never intended as a trilogy, so the first one is a fantasy-esque adventure novel about escaped slaves and the second is a quasi political thriller. Then the back quarter or so of the second book feels a lot like the author was struggling to tie things up and instead hurriedly re-introduced some characters from the first book and tried to steer the whole thing back onto that book's apparent trajectory.
Well then you should go and get Crow Road and Whit and read them both immediately!
I've also read The Crow Road, Canal Dreams, Complicity, and The Business. Sure there are a few more round the house. They're all good stuff.
Am I crazy, or is something just off about the writing in Ancillary Justice? It's not the gender thing, sentences just often don't make sense or are unnecessarily confusing. I had also heard it was a "soft" trilogy, but there was nothing soft about the way the book ended things.
I think it was her way of trying to write how an AI with multiple bodies would talk? But I don't remember any sentences that were particularily confusing. In the beginning of the book a lot of things are very vague. Do you have an example maybe?
And yeah, the way it ended felt like the next one would pick up at exactly that point.
The Wasp Factory was amazing, but I didn't like Canal Dreams at all. Banks' violent action scenes can sometimes get a bit revenge-porn-y, which I find a bit disconcerting. It seemed like Canal Dreams was just a lead up to that, and it didn't do anything for me except teaching me a little something about the Panama crisis.
The Steep Approach and Crow Road have some strong similarities. I remeber Banks saying in Raw Spirit that Crow Road was the only book he was not completely happy with (he liked the TV adaption far better than his own work.), so it looked like the Steep Approach was a new try at capturing some of the ideas of Crow Road.
The only Banks I've read and didn't like was A Song of Stone, I haven't read the Quarry or Whit yet. (Thought I ordered Whit actually a few days ago, but it turned out to be a study guide to Whit, Crow Road and the Wasp Factory. Downsides of ordering online.)