Anyone read Iain Banks?

[Joe Molotov]

I've read Wasp Factory, but I was thinking about reading some of his Sci-Fi books. I've heard some good things about them. Do you need to read them in order, or are they only loosely connected? I saw Consider Phlebas and Player of Games at the bookstore, I thought I might pick one up to start reading.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

oh for fuck's sake

I only write A THOUSAND WORDS about him everytime there's a reading thread

use the fucking search function!

short version: no the books aren't related, you can read them in any order. Use of Weapons is the best and Player of Games is a great starting point. I'd stick to his Culture books at first (assuming you like them) before branching off into his other universes

[Howard Alan Treesong]

bleh, search isn't turning anything up, so I guess I have to forgive you.

here's the paragraph summary I did on my blog recently when reviewing Inversions

Banks’ first book, Consider Phlebas, features the Culture in a good old-fashioned interstellar throwdown against a xenophobic, genocidal alien threat. Later novels are considerably more nuanced, using these external forces as an opportunity to shed light on the Culture itself. The Player of Games explores how The Culture evangelizes and expands its scope without proselytizing or aggression. Excession, on the other hand, introduces The Affront: an alien race that’s not evil, merely boorish and rude; a bunch of jovial ne’er-do-wells with a society completely and paradoxically immune to the Culture’s utopian charms. Use of Weapons, my favorite of the novels, explores the outer limits of the Culture’s morality and its reliance on outsiders to fill in both ends of that bell curve. Matter is concerned with the extent that the Culture is willing (and unwilling) to meddle in the affairs of lesser civilizations, while Look to Windward looks at how the Culture atones when this meddling goes horribly, terribly wrong. But Inversions is something else entirely: it is a Culture book without the Culture.

[Joe Molotov]

Searching is too much trouble, I just want someone to tell me which one to read first. 

I think I'll pick up Player of Games.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I would recommend Player of Games or Excession as a starting point. Player of Games because it's fuck awesome, and Excession because it's about a bunch of infinitely powerful AI intelligences posting on Evilbore, more or less.

[patrickula]

I've been reading Consider Phlebas after hearing people rave about the guy on here.  It's... OK I guess 
I know that's not one of the ones people rave about but it's the first Culture book sooo...

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I've been reading Consider Phlebas after hearing people rave about the guy on here.  It's... OK I guess 
I know that's not one of the ones people rave about but it's the first Culture book sooo...

yeah, Consider Phlebas is definitely sort of half-baked. he didn't really get his head around the Culture until the next book

[chronovore]

I read Look to Windward first, and loved it. Then I read Player of Games, and realized that I love Banks' works so much that I would have to ration them to myself slowly rather them instead of reading them all at once.

Patel's breakdown of the books above is making me want to jump into Use of Weapons, which Cormacaroni jizzed over pretty thoroughly.

[Cormacaroni]

I read Look to Windward first, and loved it. Then I read Player of Games, and realized that I love Banks' works so much that I would have to ration them to myself slowly rather them instead of reading them all at once.

Patel's breakdown of the books above is making me want to jump into Use of Weapons, which Cormacaroni jizzed over pretty thoroughly.

oh crap, did I send you that old copy?

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Use of Weapons is sooo fucking good. It's not good for genre fiction, or even good for fiction period. It's good in that fundamental way that makes you go, "Holy shit, a PERSON made this! And I'm a person too! Go us!" It's the perfect balance of exciting adventure, literary achievement, and structural complexity.

I'm really curious about the original draft of Use of Weapons, that had six parallel plot threads instead of just two. It was apparently incomprehensible, but probably would have been an awesome failure, a la Theater Eroika.

I am 2/3 done with Against a Dark Background, a non-Culture Banks book. So far, so good, but it's been pretty MacGuffin Adventures Incorporated. I've seen implications several places that the book is fucking dark, so I'm really curious how it ends. Because so far? Not so dark.

[Cormacaroni]

yeah but....Lazy Gun

i gots something cool to post in this thread but it will have to wait til i get home

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Lazy Gun

The only WMD that does it all for the lulz

[Cormacaroni]

I got this signed in 1990 I think, when I was still a starving Eng.Lit. student in Belfast 
I realize there are thousands upon thousands of signed copies of his books out there but this one still means a lot to me. I found it randomly on the bookshelves at my parents' house on a recent trip home.

[Eric P]

i keep meaning to read his books, (i have 4 of them) but keep getting distracted by other things.

i was about to start Look to Windward, even made it past the prologue, but then decided it was too big to fit in my back pocket so i started reading Steve Englehart's The Point Man instead.

[Joe Molotov]

I read part 1 of The Player of Games. It seems pretty cool so far, although nothing's really happened yet. The first 1/3rd of the book just establishes the main character and gives you some background on The Culture, but it's been decent reading.

[chronovore]

I recall that book starts slowly, and I also found the main character to be -- if not reprehensible, at least a hypocritical poser who passes up a real test of his mettle while bemoaning his fate at having nothing that can challenge him. He is dislikable; I don't know that it changes by the end of the book, but it's easier to empathize with him. The ending is thoroughly satisfying and exposes even more of The Culture's depth.