What am I in for?
>>8075271
Conisder Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.
it's a bit shaky in places, but it shapes up really well. the other Culture books paint a picture of a future that i would really like to live in, which is more than you can say for most SF today.
when you've finished this, go read Player of Games.
An adventure. Banks said he'd like to have seen it filmed, and wouldn't even mind if they messed the story up as long as they got the action scenes right.
Alsothere is a cannibalism sceneso be ready for that.
>>8077095
that grotesque fat fuck with the filed teeth on that island? hahah, i'd forgotten about him.
>>8077665
His teeth weren't filed theywere replaced with replaceable sets of metal ones that he could swap out for different jobs, Including a set that had little holes through them that could be used like wire strippers to strip the flesh off of your fingers.
Banks is great at writing this kind of shit.
>>8077683
it's been a while since my ex left and took all of my books with her, so i'd have to try to download an epub. but, yeah. Banks is great at writing that kind of shit.
>>8077812
>Letting your ex take all your books
>>8076769
I disliked it so much I stopped reading half way through. Just did nothing for me at all.
>>8075405
this
(my sides!)
I am reading it (have read 2/3 by now). It's really enjoyable and you don't feel it's length.
There are a few cool ideas in it, but few paragraphs of techno babble. So it goes down well.
>>8075271
You should've considered that before buying!
>>8077818
>Dating at all
>>8075271
It's British science fiction, written like American science fiction, but with an underlying Britishness.
It owes a surprising amount to Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide" trilogy, despite being superficially serious and epic. It is a wonderful rollercoaster of a novel. Very good.
>>8079985
>It's British science fiction, written like American science fiction, but without the gratuitous explosions, starship chases, sex scenes and colonialism
>>8081701
Consider Phlebas has all of these things.
>>8081737
its essential Britishness is revealed in that the whole book was a set-up for the scene where the Idirans run an atomic train head-on into another atomic train.
just like Gomez Addams. you can almost imagine Banks' grin as he typed those scenes.
>>8078890
This
Being s-single is the b-best
>>8078890
Dating is ok but never live together
A totalitarian communist dystopia in which everyone is enslaved to robot gods, that the author for some inexplicable reason thinks is a desirable future.
>>8082808
im pretty sure this is actually the best way
>>8075271
The evocation of intense emotions
This book made me genuinely upset, but in a good way.
>>8082831
it's more like a last man type deal only some of the last men are godlike robots (because they were built by last men and inherited their values)
It's a solid Science Fiction Adventure with a suspenseful story. I'm about to start Use of Weapons myself.
Against a Dark Background is better.
>>8082831
>in which everyone is enslaved to robot gods,
said slavery consisting of full-time partying, fucking, games, more partying, more fucking and some exploring for a change of pace.
o jesus, will nobody save the citizens of the Culture from their dismal dystopia?
humans in the culture were literally pets for the computers; also not every intelligence there was equal, humans were like privileged pets for the bigger computers while some of the lesser artificial intelligences were deemed to serve and sometimes even were bullied by the bigger computers, like that crow from excession (or many other minor minds like sapient spacesuits etc)
>>8085337
Wellbeing as you understand it – that is no goal, that seems to us an end!
>>8085360
They weren't slaves or pets, they participated in their society's collective decision-making. Each individual human had less say than a Mind, but there were many more humans than Minds.