Well, I just finishedTthe Algebraist (in between Stephensons). And of
course, it's not a Culture novel...
But it's really good all the same.
Worth comparing with the recent Alastair Reynolds trilogy, which has a
quite different tone but some common motifs. Also, weirdly, the third
one has a scene in which a human is horribly dissected whilst still
alive by a sentient pig. I still can't work out if that's meant to be
an explicit reference to Orson Scott Card's Ender series.
Dominic
On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 08:11:59 -0700, Douglas Barbour
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 16-Mar-05, at 8:59 AM, Dominic Fox wrote:
>
> > I like Iain M. Banks' descriptions of the erotic life of the Culture's
> > citizens - basically an entirely de-anxietized existence, where you
> > can change sex at will, metabolize your own drugs for any purposes
> > whatsoever, more or less choose when or whether you die, etc. etc.
> >
> > The point is that they all seem a bit bored with it.
> >
> > Dominic
> >
> >
> But only a bit. And only some of the specific people he renders as
> protagonists. In The Algebraist, old fashioned love & sex still seem to
> work.
>
> But then I take far too much pleasure from those texts....
>
> Doug
>
> Douglas Barbour
> Department of English
> University of Alberta
> Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
> (780) 436 3320
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>
> 'Goodbye Porkpie Hat': A slow air written by bass legend, band-leader
> and composer Charles Mingus . . . . It originally appeared on is 1959
> album for Columbia "Migus Ah Um" scored for quintet.
>
> Tony Mcmanus "Ceol More'
>
--
// Alas, this comparison function can't be total:
// bottom is beyond comparison. - Oleg Kiselyov
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