Matter - New Iain M Banks Culture Novel

[Structaural]

I got a naughty version , although I have bought quite afew of his books , so that's ok. I think. What reader are you using btw? I've just got Stanza, which is nice but has no 'Library' system on the host PC, as far as I can tell.

Sorry bit off topic, but after an hours messing. eReader seems to be the best for getting stuff of your own onto the iphone/touch from anywhere but unfortunately it only reads it's own format PDB. But you can get a converter from here (dropbook):

http://www.ereader.com/ereader/software/browse.htm

It will only convert txt and PML (palm markup) though so you'll have to convert it from whatever it is (if you use a PC you can export from word using this webpage: http://pwp.netcabo.pt/gorod/publishebook/download.htm straight to the PDB format).

Then upload it to your website (or do what I did and used Weebly to make one) and type the URL into eReader. Then click the link, it will download and display as normal (it will download pure TXT or DOC files but won't keep it on your iPhone) and save it in the library. Result.

Here's one I did earlier so you can see: strunt.weebly.com <<<---put into eReader

(it's Iron Council by China thingeybob)

Also check out Bookshelf - this allows you to put more formats into a Shelfapp that runs on your home or work computer - but you have to run an app on the desktop and is troublesome if behind a firewall as I am. But this is probably the key for getting lots of stuff on your ipod touch/iphone.

 

[Crispy]

woah, that's loads more complex than the stanza way!

1. Open Stanza on the computer
2. Open the file you want to transfer
3. Open Stanza on the iphone(make sure wifi is turned on)
4. Your computer should be one of the default sources, you can download the book from there

 

[Structaural]

Yeah I'm firewalled at work so can't do that sort of thing and my desktop machine is packed away at the moment. I found all manner of ways around a lack of sync (I've not synced my iphone for about 3 months now) and link with desktop (I upload tv shows to my iDisk and then download them again over wifi - takes ages but it's a workround

 

[xenon]

I'm actually reading Use of Weapons on the PC ATM. My least favourite, rather than worst, Culture novel would be Inversions. It just seemed. Contact have been. Subtley influenced. Then just left. What happened to the 2 kindoms. What was supposed to happen... Probably needs a reread. Few years ago now.

Player of Games dragged a bit. You felt shepparded along by the narative. The ending was actually more dramatic than I expected on route though.

Yeah I love that idea of the Excession too. The Sublimed ships at the end. There's galaxies, interstella medium, hyperspace, the whole universe then this thing shows up from somewhere else. Making the Culture and their peers, look like clueless children.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm actually reading Use of Weapons on the PC ATM. My least favourite, rather than worst, Culture novel would be Inversions. It just seemed. Contact have been. Subtley influenced. Then just left. What happened to the 2 kindoms. What was supposed to happen... Probably needs a reread. Few years ago now.

Player of Games dragged a bit. You felt shepparded along by the narative. The ending was actually more dramatic than I expected on route though.

Yeah I love that idea of the Excession too. The Sublimed ships at the end. There's galaxies, interstella medium, hyperspace, the whole universe then this thing shows up from somewhere else. Making the Culture and their peers, look like clueless children.

The point of the book wasn't really about the greater issues though, that's why it was so different to a normal Culture book. It was about the relationship between the two SC agents, told from two different perspectives.

 

[xenon]

I'll reread at some point. More familiar with the Culture MO now. SO will give a little more context to the contrast.

 

[starfish]

Is there a specific chronology to his sci-fi books or can they be read in any order. Ive read Consider Phlebas & Inversions, the ms has quite a few of his other ones & id like to give them a go.

 

[Crispy]

no real chronology no

 

[starfish]

^^
Ta

 

[kyser_soze]

Is there a specific chronology to his sci-fi books or can they be read in any order. Ive read Consider Phlebas & Inversions, the ms has quite a few of his other ones & id like to give them a go.

Publishing chronology is Phlebas, Player, Weapons, State of the Art, Against, Enjinn, Excession, Inversions, Windward, Algebraist, Matter - bold are Culture novels...

 

[berniedicters]

I haven't checked to see if there's a thread about it, but I heard a trailer on R4 for a radio play of the Culture novella in State Of The Art, to be broadcast quite soon...

 

[Crispy]

Dunno if anyone's seen, but Banks' The State of the Art is Radio 4's Afternoon Play on March 5, at 2:15pm. It's adapted by Paul Cornell (he of the Doctor Who story Human Nature) and stars Sir Antony Sher, Nina Sosanya and Paterson Joseph. Win!

I haven't checked to see if there's a thread about it, but I heard a trailer on R4 for a radio play of the Culture novella in State Of The Art, to be broadcast quite soon...

Zing!

 

[berniedicters]

Zing!

Bollocks. I must have scanread past it in my excitement to be First Mit Der News. There was an interview with IMB on the R4 book show yesterday, but it came on just as I arrived at my meeting, so I have to remember to listen to it on Listen Again. I'll probably forget

 

[Crispy]

Finished it, and yes the ending is rather abrupt.

Spoiler: what I liked and didn't like

LIKE
Nitty-gritty of special circumstances
Loads of cool aliens
The mad dash towards the ending

DISLIKE
Subplots with no resolution or real point (ie. The prince's mother & the king's lover)
Abrupt and rather crap resolution of the Prince's plot
Overblown and windy speeches from the Sarl
Not enough sarcastic/smartarse AIs. I like those.

WTF
The Iln was in the middle of building a big ball of antimatter when it was killed. Where'd that go?

 

[Boycey]

okay i'm not reading the rest of this thread in case of spoilers- i'm about 2/3s through this but did anyone else let out a lolwut?! on page 366 at the room number of where there's "loud thumping music and drug smoke"?

 

[kropotkin]

My fairly short take on it: crap.

What a disappointment. So much more could have been done with the princess, so much more with the tension between the sychophantic requirements of the prince and the materialist analyses of the servant. It was just paint-by-numbers stuff in the end.
And Crispy, I agree on the mother-and-lover plotlines- what the fuck were the point of those?


Anyway, downloaded the previous Richard Morgan novel "Broken Angels" to read, and that is shaping up quite well.
Don't know what sci-fi to read next... I might have to retreat into 'literature' again for a bit

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Spoiler: for the sub plots

it could be that the sub plots cut short represent how little the internal struggles of that kingdom are when confronted with a event on a galactic scale

 

[DotCommunist]

My fairly short take on it: crap.

What a disappointment. So much more could have been done with the princess, so much more with the tension between the sychophantic requirements of the prince and the materialist analyses of the servant. It was just paint-by-numbers stuff in the end.
And Crispy, I agree on the mother-and-lover plotlines- what the fuck were the point of those?


Anyway, downloaded the previous Richard Morgan novel "Broken Angels" to read, and that is shaping up quite well.
Don't know what sci-fi to read next... I might have to retreat into 'literature' again for a bit

China Meiville. Author of 'between equal rights' a marxist look at international law.

He writes the sort of steampunk excellence rarely seen in modern speculative fictions.

Well worth your time, start with Perdido Street Station or Scar.

 

[kropotkin]

yeah,i've read them all.

i think i'm going to read 'the forever war', it gets very good reviews by the sci-fi grandees.

 

[Crispy]

yeah,i've read them all.

i think i'm going to read 'the forever war', it gets very good reviews by the sci-fi grandees.

And it's going to be made into a film by Ridley Scott

 

[kyser_soze]

Ridley's doing a skiffy movie again? I have a tingly feeling in my tingly places.

 

[Crispy]

Ridley's doing a skiffy movie again? I have a tingly feeling in my tingly places.

And he saw what Cameron's been doing with 'Avatar' and is going to film it in 3D

 

[DotCommunist]

Is Haldemans work filmable?

maybe.

 

[kropotkin]

And it's going to be made into a film by Ridley Scott

That is one of the reasons I want to read it now- need to get through it before it comes out as a film.

 

[Stigmata]

Is Haldemans work filmable?

maybe.

Yeah. It's a bit episodic and they might have to cut some cool stuff like the stasis field, but it can be done.

 

[SpookyFrank]

WTF
The Iln was in the middle of building a big ball of antimatter when it was killed. Where'd that go?[/spoiler]

Spoiler

Anaplian said that the Xinthian would be able to destroy the antimatter once it was freed from the Iln's cage.

Yeah, so just finished Matter. It was enjoyable enough but it felt badly placed and absolutely rank with loose ends and non-sequiturs. The whole direction of the story shifts completely about 50 pages from the end and sort of leaves you wondering what the point of it all was. There were plenty of good bits though:

Spoiler

I liked the bit with the Nariscene and their manufactured war. The Nariscene talks about real warfare being so easily affected by the tiniest human actions and how this means that no computer model is ever accurate enough. I felt that tied in with the issue of why SC is so fond of human agents when drones/AI's would presumably be able to think and react more quickly and with better knowledge of what was going on than a human ever could.

The super-smug Oct all getting killed by the big fireball was quite amusing as well.

e2a: oh yeah, and:

Spoiler

At the very end when Anaplian's thinking that even with her backup, she'll never know if her AM bomb trick worked; presumably because her backup won't know she even did it; that was quite clever. It also reminds you at the last minute that she wasn't quite as heroic as she seemed because she knew she could be reborn after sacrificing herself whereas her brother couldn't.

Oh yeah, and:

Spoiler

From the description of all the people dying of radiation poisoning, Ferbin and Anaplian presumably arrived at the falls some days after the Iln thingy escaped. How did it take something so super-powerful so long to get into the core of the world?

I'll stop now

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

After seeing Star Trek, I want JJ Abrams to do Consider Phlebas.

 

[Crispy]

After seeing Star Trek, I want JJ Abrams to do Consider Phlebas.

It'd have to be heavily edited. And the showdown has a rather dull setting. Player of Games would make a good first culture movie. maybe.

 

[DotCommunist]

It'd have to be heavily edited. And the showdown has a rather dull setting. Player of Games would make a good first culture movie. maybe.

the moral message is certainly heavy handed enough for even a hollywood production to convey

 

[Crispy]

the moral message is certainly heavy handed enough for even a hollywood production to convey

Yep. And a suitably dramtic climax too.