Of course Reynolds only take us a few centuries into the 'future,'
although he too has almost unbelievably ancient machines still
wandering the universe trying to stop a certain kind of 'life' from
spreading; while Banks just gives us all those wonderfully ancient
'slow' species. I do enjoy them both.
Not at all sure about the Card allusion, but then I gave up on that
series of his a looong time ago....
Doug
On 18-Mar-05, at 10:27 AM, Dominic Fox wrote:
> 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
>
>
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 "Mingus Ah Um" scored for quintet.
Tony Mcmanus "Ceol More'
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