As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

[The Culture] Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism

1101113151619

Posts

  • SealSeal Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    I loved the bit where Lededje wants help killing Veppers so she does the logical thing in asking a warship for help and its response being "you want a culture warship to help you kill a dude".

    Seal on
  • MonwynMonwyn Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered User regular
    Seal wrote: »
    I loved the bit where Lededje wants help killing Veppers so she does the logical thing in asking a warship for help and its response being "you want a culture warship to help you kill a dude".

    In fairness Lededje didn't exactly know what she was asking.

    This works two ways.

    uH3IcEi.png
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    It doesn't need to be The Culture, but I really wish we had more media where they actually explored the difference between personal and private property, and how private property, landlords, etc are bad for the majority of people

    Star Trek even largely shied away from that

    I like Star Trek but it frequently engages in a lot of "if we're just liberal enough then bam, utopia" without changing a lot of underlying assumptions about wealth and power.

    Cut to Sisko making cracks about Picard declaring job well done, flying away, and leaving people like him to spend the next 10 years to actually make it work

    override367 on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Seal wrote: »
    I loved the bit where Lededje wants help killing Veppers so she does the logical thing in asking a warship for help and its response being "you want a culture warship to help you kill a dude".
    "Gonna have to wipe out an entire fleet of ships, and then take on a swarm of a quarter billion less advanced warships, sure sounds fun"

    override367 on
  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    the
    "oh it all happened in like 30 milliseconds, we're just watching the slowed down replay here "
    bit was great, too

    autono-wally, erotibot300 on
    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    I liked the
    Oh! We're coming up to my favourite part.

  • Dis'Dis' Registered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    Yeah manors and palaces in ye olden days were huge as they were inhabited by extended families + variable numbers of guests + support staff + offices for whatever the business/government stuff the owners did.

    Modern grandiosity is hollowly aping a style as status symbol without the function (see also: huge lawns).

    In the culture where theres no status to show off people not bothering is very on point.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    Dis' wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    Yeah manors and palaces in ye olden days were huge as they were inhabited by extended families + variable numbers of guests + support staff + offices for whatever the business/government stuff the owners did.

    Modern grandiosity is hollowly aping a style as status symbol without the function (see also: huge lawns).

    In the culture where theres no status to show off people not bothering is very on point.

    yep, in Ye Olden Days, each individual person in a manor probably had a good size suburb apartment amount of space to themselves in most circumstances, not the entire fucking place

    not that it wasn't opulence given the poverty that existed, but what we see in the modern age is smaller yacht in the pool on the top deck of your bigger yacht silly

  • MonwynMonwyn Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered User regular
    Dis' wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    Yeah manors and palaces in ye olden days were huge as they were inhabited by extended families + variable numbers of guests + support staff + offices for whatever the business/government stuff the owners did.

    Modern grandiosity is hollowly aping a style as status symbol without the function (see also: huge lawns).

    In the culture where theres no status to show off people not bothering is very on point.

    There was never any point to lawns - they were literally a way to say "I'm so fucking rich I don't even have to farm this land I own"

    uH3IcEi.png
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    I love the fact it actually wait for the fleet to launch what would be a killing attack, if it was the old demilitarized ship the fleet believed it was. It wasn't.

    Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is pure troll. It pretends to be a monster, but at every point it actually does what the ideal Mind would do.

    Despite all the lead up where FOTNMC builds itself up as a kind of monster they took every effort to give that belligerent fleet a way out. Way after Lededje was all for blowing them up they were still carefully establishing their escalation of force...right up until they made a clearly lethal attack.

    Culture warships aren't like the gun nut looking for the excuse to pull but if you make them pull you'll only know it when you hit the afterlife.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    Dis' wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    Yeah manors and palaces in ye olden days were huge as they were inhabited by extended families + variable numbers of guests + support staff + offices for whatever the business/government stuff the owners did.

    Modern grandiosity is hollowly aping a style as status symbol without the function (see also: huge lawns).

    In the culture where theres no status to show off people not bothering is very on point.

    Like, being a popular and influential enough person to constantly be hosting people for parties and orgies and whatever, to warrant having a mansion with 60 bedroom, 10 parlors and game rooms, 5 dinner rooms, and 5 ballrooms. Would absolutely be a status thing in The Culture.

    Just, without the need, it's just stuff, and the stuff doesn't have any value, so you'd kinda just look a bit silly.

    Like Phage Rock, and some of it's more notable inhabitants, are part of The Culture.

    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    I love the fact it actually wait for the fleet to launch what would be a killing attack, if it was the old demilitarized ship the fleet believed it was. It wasn't.

    Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is pure troll. It pretends to be a monster, but at every point it actually does what the ideal Mind would do.

    Despite all the lead up where FOTNMC builds itself up as a kind of monster they took every effort to give that belligerent fleet a way out. Way after Lededje was all for blowing them up they were still carefully establishing their escalation of force...right up until they made a clearly lethal attack.

    Culture warships aren't like the gun nut looking for the excuse to pull but if you make them pull you'll only know it when you hit the afterlife.

    Culture warships are the embodiment of "fuck around and find out"

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    I love the fact it actually wait for the fleet to launch what would be a killing attack, if it was the old demilitarized ship the fleet believed it was. It wasn't.

    Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is pure troll. It pretends to be a monster, but at every point it actually does what the ideal Mind would do.

    Despite all the lead up where FOTNMC builds itself up as a kind of monster they took every effort to give that belligerent fleet a way out. Way after Lededje was all for blowing them up they were still carefully establishing their escalation of force...right up until they made a clearly lethal attack.

    Culture warships aren't like the gun nut looking for the excuse to pull but if you make them pull you'll only know it when you hit the afterlife.

    Culture warships are the embodiment of "fuck around and find out"
    thats basically what the Mistake Not says at the end of Sonata

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    I feel like there'd still be a fair number of big-ass villas and such in The Culture. Not because the occupants (if there are even occupants at any give time) feel the need to show off the size of their dwelling or because they're social beasts or whatever. There are a lot of artists in The Culture. Architecture, interior design, and structural engineering are all art forms. There are probably a ton of fancy-ass bridges in The Culture too and basically nobody has any actual need for a bridge. I mean, there are people whose chosen art form is designing mountain ranges. Big, Weird Houses are probably all over the place.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    edited April 2021
    I feel like there'd still be a fair number of big-ass villas and such in The Culture. Not because the occupants (if there are even occupants at any give time) feel the need to show off the size of their dwelling or because they're social beasts or whatever. There are a lot of artists in The Culture. Architecture, interior design, and structural engineering are all art forms. There are probably a ton of fancy-ass bridges in The Culture too and basically nobody has any actual need for a bridge. I mean, there are people whose chosen art form is designing mountain ranges. Big, Weird Houses are probably all over the place.

    Right, there is for sure some thousand-room house where the rooms are all empty, but it's meant as a commentary on the concept of thousand-room houses.

    Winky on
  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Or a thousand-room mansion where every room is just the same sitting room from a shitty-but-inexplicably-popular dramatic entertainment piece. Like "The Same Picture of Jeff Goldblum Every Day": The House.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Gurgeh's house is at least implied to be big but that was more a function of him being kind of an oddball and designing it himself.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Gurgeh's house is at least implied to be big but that was more a function of him being kind of an oddball and designing it himself.

    I pictured it more as "Big for a guy living alone who mostly plays board games and doesn't have to physically store a shit ton of games somewhere" rather than, like, Versailles or Downton Abbey big.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    The Culture is also trillions of weirdos a fullfilling their weirdo whims. Someome somewhere read an old Contact report and decided to recreate Versailles and dress up as a French king.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    Ulver Seich lives in mansion, on a rock with limited space, not an orbital with 1000x the real estate of a planet, and had 3 personal bedrooms larger than your house, a stable for her flying? horse, and who's idea of traveling light is 3 giant steamer trunks.

    She's a demonstrably entitled edge-ish case, but...

    There's trillions of people in the Culture. Most of them aren't Contact agents. They are social media obcessed(there's multiple references bizarre fads and social media is basically how their justice system and politics are described to work) hedonistic dandies who depend on a hub or ship mind to plan out their constant social engagements and distractions.

    Horza's view of The Culture is intended to be largely accurate, though blind to underlying strengths.

    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    The Culture is also trillions of weirdos a fullfilling their weirdo whims. Someome somewhere read an old Contact report and decided to recreate Versailles and dress up as a French king.
    The benefits of living in a post-scarcity society, You've got the resources and space to do it. And if you have the style and verve to make it interesting, you get social cred and notoriety out of it too.

    Otherwise, what's the point? When material wealth is meaningless, big, useless displays have no value.

  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular
    So I finally got around to reading Player of Games as my first foray into the Culture series. It did not disappoint, but I have one question I honestly couldn't quite decipher out of the text:
    It's pretty obvious by the end that Mawhrin-Skel was there specifically to recruit Gurgeh. Was the offer from Chamlis Amalk-ney also part of the whole plan?

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Mvrck wrote: »
    So I finally got around to reading Player of Games as my first foray into the Culture series. It did not disappoint, but I have one question I honestly couldn't quite decipher out of the text:
    It's pretty obvious by the end that Mawhrin-Skel was there specifically to recruit Gurgeh. Was the offer from Chamlis Amalk-ney also part of the whole plan?
    Chamlis likely didnt know Gurgeh was the target of a plot but the plotters likely knew of Chamlis's contacts

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • M-VickersM-Vickers Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    Surface Detail presents "dont fuck with the Culture" as a well known galaxy wide axiom and warning.

    The bit where FOTNMC just casually annihilates the fleet is so good

    the
    "oh it all happened in like 30 milliseconds, we're just watching the slowed down replay here "
    bit was great, too

    I loved that line. The ship’s utter glee at her thinking
    she was watching it in real-time. And also the lengths it went to to keep her safe.

  • Dis'Dis' Registered User regular
    Monwyn wrote: »
    Dis' wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    Yeah manors and palaces in ye olden days were huge as they were inhabited by extended families + variable numbers of guests + support staff + offices for whatever the business/government stuff the owners did.

    Modern grandiosity is hollowly aping a style as status symbol without the function (see also: huge lawns).

    In the culture where theres no status to show off people not bothering is very on point.

    There was never any point to lawns - they were literally a way to say "I'm so fucking rich I don't even have to farm this land I own"

    Not so much the english stately home 'lawns of sweeping grass' were used for grazing sheep for wool. They were 'prettified' and levelled but still in use. It's why there's all these low walls around the more garden-y bits to keep the sheep out.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    redx wrote: »
    Dis' wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    On the "what if people want mansions" debate. I remember reading about the Manor(that is the actual name of the house) in Hollywood that Aaron Spelling the TV producer built. It had 123 room, 27 bathrooms, 14 Bedrooms and both a 2-ale bowling alley and a Cinema with seats for 20 people. There where a lot of other amenities as well, including a servants wing(not something the Culture would need)

    Despite this Tori Spelling says, the family of four spend most of their time in the same 5-8 rooms and left the rest of the building to gather dust most of the time.

    At some point possessions become just too large for you to interact with them in a meaningful way.

    Yeah manors and palaces in ye olden days were huge as they were inhabited by extended families + variable numbers of guests + support staff + offices for whatever the business/government stuff the owners did.

    Modern grandiosity is hollowly aping a style as status symbol without the function (see also: huge lawns).

    In the culture where theres no status to show off people not bothering is very on point.

    Like, being a popular and influential enough person to constantly be hosting people for parties and orgies and whatever, to warrant having a mansion with 60 bedroom, 10 parlors and game rooms, 5 dinner rooms, and 5 ballrooms. Would absolutely be a status thing in The Culture.

    Just, without the need, it's just stuff, and the stuff doesn't have any value, so you'd kinda just look a bit silly.

    Like Phage Rock, and some of it's more notable inhabitants, are part of The Culture.

    Though the actual status would be coming from the fact that you're popular enough to throw the good parties. The mansion would be mostly just a tool to enable that and less a big-ass symbol that you're the party guy. Though there's probably someone who has said mansion with an actual big-ass sign on it saying that they're the party guy.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • CasualCasual Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Flap Flap Flap Registered User regular
    The Culture is also trillions of weirdos a fullfilling their weirdo whims. Someome somewhere read an old Contact report and decided to recreate Versailles and dress up as a French king.
    The benefits of living in a post-scarcity society, You've got the resources and space to do it. And if you have the style and verve to make it interesting, you get social cred and notoriety out of it too.

    Otherwise, what's the point? When material wealth is meaningless, big, useless displays have no value.

    It feels like the real currency in the culture is things you generate yourself. Creativity, moral authority, knowledge and learning... All that sort of stuff. People give you social currency for being a person worthy of admiration in whatever field whether that's mathematics, board games or shagging.

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    very much so. the "richest" persons in the culture are those that strive to become extremely good at something. with that big a society, even the most niche interest has billions of followers

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Mvrck wrote: »
    So I finally got around to reading Player of Games as my first foray into the Culture series. It did not disappoint, but I have one question I honestly couldn't quite decipher out of the text:
    It's pretty obvious by the end that Mawhrin-Skel was there specifically to recruit Gurgeh. Was the offer from Chamlis Amalk-ney also part of the whole plan?
    Chamlis likely didnt know Gurgeh was the target of a plot but the plotters likely knew of Chamlis's contacts

    Digging into that book is an exercise in paranoia.
    Basically everything before Gurgeh leaves the orbital might have been part of the plot to get him to go fuck up Azad. The chance meeting on the train game and odd circumstances that lead to the appearance of cheating? Yeah, that was absolutely a set up.

    I mention that because I remember it. I have suspicions that almost all of it was a set up. The parts that weren't a set up were accounted for and factored into the games of the Minds who plotted to get Gurgeh to agree. Insert trite comment about players of games and pawns here.

    Though it really depends on how cynical I'm feeling at the moment.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Mvrck wrote: »
    So I finally got around to reading Player of Games as my first foray into the Culture series. It did not disappoint, but I have one question I honestly couldn't quite decipher out of the text:
    It's pretty obvious by the end that Mawhrin-Skel was there specifically to recruit Gurgeh. Was the offer from Chamlis Amalk-ney also part of the whole plan?
    Chamlis likely didnt know Gurgeh was the target of a plot but the plotters likely knew of Chamlis's contacts

    Digging into that book is an exercise in paranoia.
    Basically everything before Gurgeh leaves the orbital might have been part of the plot to get him to go fuck up Azad. The chance meeting on the train game and odd circumstances that lead to the appearance of cheating? Yeah, that was absolutely a set up.

    I mention that because I remember it. I have suspicions that almost all of it was a set up. The parts that weren't a set up were accounted for and factored into the games of the Minds who plotted to get Gurgeh to agree. Insert trite comment about players of games and pawns here.

    Though it really depends on how cynical I'm feeling at the moment.
    they do say they didn't raise Gurgeh for the purpose and straight up lying isnt really a thing theyd do for no reason

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    Well, guess I'm rereading every Culture book now.

    There are a lot I listened to on audiobook that I want to read in paperback form this time around, I think.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Mvrck wrote: »
    So I finally got around to reading Player of Games as my first foray into the Culture series. It did not disappoint, but I have one question I honestly couldn't quite decipher out of the text:
    It's pretty obvious by the end that Mawhrin-Skel was there specifically to recruit Gurgeh. Was the offer from Chamlis Amalk-ney also part of the whole plan?
    Chamlis likely didnt know Gurgeh was the target of a plot but the plotters likely knew of Chamlis's contacts

    Digging into that book is an exercise in paranoia.
    Basically everything before Gurgeh leaves the orbital might have been part of the plot to get him to go fuck up Azad. The chance meeting on the train game and odd circumstances that lead to the appearance of cheating? Yeah, that was absolutely a set up.

    I mention that because I remember it. I have suspicions that almost all of it was a set up. The parts that weren't a set up were accounted for and factored into the games of the Minds who plotted to get Gurgeh to agree. Insert trite comment about players of games and pawns here.

    Though it really depends on how cynical I'm feeling at the moment.
    they do say they didn't raise Gurgeh for the purpose and straight up lying isnt really a thing theyd do for no reason
    Raising a person and shaping their entire life for the single purpose of pulling off a Special Circumstances coup on an alien empire would be a major dick move by Culture standards. Also totally unnecessary since a population of however many trillions is going to mean that two or three people who fit the bill for whatever shenanigans you're pulling will probably just pop up on their own. Then you just need a couple nudges.

    But yeah, otherwise pretty much everything in the book is Gurgeh getting played as he plays Azad so that SC can play the Emperor. Or something like that.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    Well, guess I'm rereading every Culture book now.

    There are a lot I listened to on audiobook that I want to read in paperback form this time around, I think.

    exactly opposite for me, I've read them a few times in paperback, now I'll listen to them for the first time, right after I'm finished with the ancillary justice series

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    About the Ancillary Justice books, are the second and on ones different in any major ways from the first? I read that one and basically bounced off of it.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Hydrogen Sonata has probably one of the most viscerally horrifying deaths in all the Culture books
    When the head of government is assassinated with the "melts your nervous system" weapon. That one got to me.
    And the bad guy just... gets away with it and sublimes with the rest of his civilization, if I remember correctly.
    Winky wrote: »
    I would say that broadly every Culture book has the same message, which is a sort of depressed optimism; the moral arc of the universe tends towards justice, but it is a crap shoot whether any particular individual will ever get to experience it. The protagonist doesn't always win, but the Culture always wins.

    There's a Banks quote I can't find at the moment, but paraphrased, the good guy doesn't always win, the bad guy doesn't always get their just desserts, and sometimes horrible things happen to good people.

    China Miéville (...I'm pretty sure I already said this earlier in the thread) does the same kind of stuff.

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    It was from his last interview before his death. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the-final-interview
    He has already addressed the unspoken topic. As we sit over tea and biscuits, I prepare to ask the first formal question (is "So how are you?" just dumbly insensitive? Is "Tell me about the new novel" too much as if this were just a standard, publicity circuit chat?). But Banks is off already, talking 19 to the dozen, brandishing a handkerchief with a Cyberman on it (a present) and saying, "You know, I've fallen out of love with Doctor Who, at least in its present incarnation. I just can't get along with it. People have suggested I should write for the programme, but, ach, I just couldn't. I might have been hopelessly naive but I hadn't realised there are just so many rules when you write a Doctor Who story, like the monster has to go back in the box at the end."

    I suggest that what most readers thrill at in Banks's science fiction is exactly that sense of risk.

    "Well," he says, "if you are going to write what a friend of a friend once called 'Made up space shit', then if it's going to have any ring of truth that means sometimes some of the horrible characters get to live, and for there to be any sense of jeopardy, especially in future novels, the good people have to die. Sometimes."

  • AtaxrxesAtaxrxes Hellnation Cursed EarthRegistered User regular
    Matter was the first Culture book I read and I think the first Banks book I read for that...matter. I was at a friend's apartment and saw it sitting there so I picked it up to peruse. He saw me looking at it and said "You'll never finish it." I was like "You don't know me sir, challenge accepted!" I could barely put it down, and when I got to the end...well, huh, I guess you can totally do that in a sci-fi book. I thought it was great! Of course I then went on to read every Culture book I could get my hands on. Some of my favorite of all time. I'm going to need to do a re-read at some point.

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Yeah, I’m working my way through a first-time read of Gibson’s Bridge trilogy (can’t believe it took me this long), but methinks it’s time for a Banks re-read after that.

  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    edited April 2021
    Echo wrote: »
    Hydrogen Sonata has probably one of the most viscerally horrifying deaths in all the Culture books
    When the head of government is assassinated with the "melts your nervous system" weapon. That one got to me.
    And the bad guy just... gets away with it and sublimes with the rest of his civilization, if I remember correctly.
    Winky wrote: »
    I would say that broadly every Culture book has the same message, which is a sort of depressed optimism; the moral arc of the universe tends towards justice, but it is a crap shoot whether any particular individual will ever get to experience it. The protagonist doesn't always win, but the Culture always wins.

    There's a Banks quote I can't find at the moment, but paraphrased, the good guy doesn't always win, the bad guy doesn't always get their just desserts, and sometimes horrible things happen to good people.

    China Miéville (...I'm pretty sure I already said this earlier in the thread) does the same kind of stuff.

    In everything I've read by Miéville the horribly oppressive state has crushed whatever change agents have appeared.

    I kinda want The Culture to win, so it's hard for me to think of it as the same thing... but... eh...

    redx on
    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    I'd find it hard to say that the Culture is the same in any way, just that the universe doesn't operate on the principals of just desserts and happy endings.

    Sometimes, there's a chair.

Sign In or Register to comment.