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Thread: The Culture Series
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2012-09-24, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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The Culture Series
I've never read any of the books from the 'Culture series', but continued references to the books on this forum and elsewhere have intrigued me, and I'm thinking I'll go and grab a book or two of the series and see if it's as interesting to me as it sounds from the references I keep hearing to it. But as with any series, I'm not sure where best to start, whether I should go chronologically or start with the first book published and continue from there. So I figure what better way to resolve that little question than to ask on here? What's the best way to go about the Culture series?
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2012-09-24, 04:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
There isn't an overarching story. All the books are self contained. Book 1 or book 2 are probably the best entrance points. Book 1 is more action heavy, book 2 is more cerebral.
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2012-09-24, 05:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
I was in the same boat, and I tried the first one, Consider Phlebas. It was...okay. I was expecting more out of it than I got.
I think the trouble was was that the Culture were more in the background, and they were far more interesting than the other people floating around (particularly the protagonist). It's also noting, despite the setting being a war, you see really very little of the actual fighting, and the story felt a bit episodic, lots of little incidents and misadventures strung together rather than one contiguous story. The ending was pretty banal as well, and the suspense was dragged out for about two to three times as long as it needed to be, until I was crying for the Bad Thing to hurry up and happen already, because I was bored of waiting.
So yeah.
It wasn't so bad I'd never read another one, and as people have suggested since, the second book might be a better introduction which I might well try in due course.
That would be my opinion, anyway.
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2012-09-24, 06:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
I agree to second book (The Player of Games) on being a better introduction to the Culture, especially how they interact with a civilisation they find distasteful (getting into a shooting war is usually regarded as a last resort and an indication of failure).
If you're interested in how the Culture actually does warfare, Excession covers it very well and also details how they deal with an Outside Context Problem, which is a type of problem "that most civilizations would encounter just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop."
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2012-09-24, 07:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Some of the later ones kind of assume you've read the earlier ones in that they contain references you will miss, or are iconoclastic to the setting.
State of the Art, Use of Weapons and Inversions fall into this category.
I preferred Consider Phlebas to be better than Player of Games, but opinions vary.π = 4
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2012-09-24, 07:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Having read the first three, I thought #2 (Player of Games) was most enjoyable. Can't really speak to the direction of the series beyond that though
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2012-09-24, 10:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Culture novels I find are pretty hit-or-miss. I'll toss my hat in for Player of Games as probably the best introduction, and also as one of the better novels in the setting. Consider Phlebas, Excession, and (according to my brother but I've never read it personally) Use of Weapons are good ones, I find.
The problem is when you get one like Look to Windward, a novel that can be accurately summarized as "Guy comes to Culture station, has an unpleasant past which is gradually revealed, and doesn't do anything." Or Surface Detail, which has the cajones to ask the tough ethical questions: Maybe putting people's mind-states in computers so they can suffer for a subjective eternity after death in vividly realized digi-hells is, like, not a great thing to do? Or at least I assume that its purpose is in asking a Culture-novel "should we interfere" sort of ethical question, because the main character has no impact and not even much involvement in what's going on, so as a narrative it's pretty flat.
In sum: Start with Player of Games. Don't be afraid to read reviews and skip some if you continue with the setting.Last edited by Cyrano; 2012-09-24 at 10:12 PM.
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2012-09-25, 07:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
I have to agree here that The Player of Games is probably the best introduction (and one of the best of the series too). Consider Phlebas wasn't bad either. I also read Matter which I found was also pretty interesting. It was the first one I read actually and it wasn't too confusing or anything.
I tried reading Use of Weapons and honestly could not get into it at all. The way it jumped around was painful to read. I'm currently reading Excession and I find it a tad slow. It also jumps around a bit in a non-obviously connected way which is a little off too. But the overall plot is still interesting enough to keep me going.
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2012-09-25, 10:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of the trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise.
-Camus, An Absurd Reasoning
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2012-10-15, 09:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Well, having finished Excession, I agree that it might have been better if I started on a different book, as this one was rather difficult. (I had no choice in the matter, since upon two visits to Barnes and Noble I discovered that this was the only Culture book which was available in a tolerably-priced paperback; I actually think I got $8 worth of satisfaction out of it despite its flaws, but paying nearly twice as much for a larger and thus more difficult-to-store-and-transport volume was simply never an option.) It contained a number of passages that I found very profound and enjoyable and which I've marked for future reference, but it also contained a lot of awkwardly written bits and questionable inclusions.
One possible claim of the series' critics which I cannot help but agree with is that Ian M. Banks, author of the internationally esteemed and arguably even legendary Culture Series, is without question the supreme and unparalleled past master of the arbitrarily overlong and disjoined run-on sentence which continues without end or even punctuation for an unquestionably absurd and unnecessarily length, until the reader' sympathy for his loquaciousness is doubtlessly exhausted.
I was determined to read a book from this series because of its utopian leanings (both in general because I don't like stories that depress me, and specifically because I run a D&D game set in an extremely civilized and benevolent society, so other stories of such settings are valuable research), and have argued at moderate length over in the Warhammer Vs. Culture thread against the belief that the Culture's hedonism is a bad thing. However I will say that the scene in Excession which dwells the most on hedonistic excess (when Byr is wandering around Night City, all pimped out with his three drug-devices, one of which is alive, after having slept with something like seven of what would be prostitutes if he had actually had to pay them) rather turned my stomach, and if that was what these critics were thinking of, I can somewhat see their point. I don't believe that hedonism is entirely negative, but certainly this portrayal did it no favors.
Overall I'm happy with Excession, but could have been more so, and I feel I can take a relaxed approach to getting more Culture books in the future.
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2012-10-15, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Excession is a difficult book to start with, with its convoluted plot and preponderance of conversations between minds. I really like it though, it has a very grand feel to it. I agree that The Player of Games is a more straightforward story so it's easier to follow and yes it's one of the best in the series. Consider Phlebas doesn't have to be the first story you read but knowing about the war helps in a lot of later books.
As for the hedonism I must confess that the excesses of cruelty and pleasure in his books are a big, maybe sort of perverse, attraction for me. However he manages to balance that with the rather utopian but still not entirely unambiguous morals of the Culture.
Someone mentioned Look to Windward and while I understand if people think it's boring compared to some of his other books it actually calls the moral infallibility of the culture in question and manages to sympathetically portray a terrorist.
Then there is the Use of Weapons which really shook me, I wholeheartedly recommend that one. In fact I have to read it again myself.
In fact I really like all of his Sci-Fi books, even the non-Culture ones.
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2012-10-15, 09:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
I have read Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, and Matter; I grabbed the third because I'd heard good things about it and I was determined to try one more time to find the appeal of this series. I really doubt I'll bother with any more, though. I find his writing dry and long-winded - so not only does it take forever for anything to happen, but it seems even longer. (And then when you finally get to the action sequence he's been building up to for 600 pages... it's over in, like, three. And most of it happens off-screen.) There are entire subplots that just don't ever go anywhere (like the one that occupied about 1/3 of Matter). And his vision of utopia - in which people are in truth pampered pets of godlike AIs - is one I find repugnant. Also, he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that 1967 is over... but that part is merely incredibly uninteresting rather than actually disgusting.
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2012-10-16, 01:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
It is good at creating scope, I'll agree there. It is less good at making anything of that scope once it's created. You get the impression there should be a roleplaying game to explore all this unused worldbuilding, except that a setting as low in conflict as the Culture setting would be a rather horrid place to roleplay.
Agreed, this is definitely a weakness he has.
And his vision of utopia - in which people are in truth pampered pets of godlike AIs - is one I find repugnant.
Also, he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that 1967 is over...
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2012-10-16, 01:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
WH40K and The Culture are not the only possibilities. Which is good, since they're both absolutely terrible outcomes for humans - but it does mean your argument is a False Dilemma.
I'm not a fan of utopian visions in the first place, but this particular utopian vision gives people all the apparent freedom of a pet, or a small child - it's the "freedom" of having zero responsibility, because the Minds will take care of everything that matters and see to all their needs. But that's dependence, not freedom. If your actions carry no consequences, then you're not free. You're irrelevant. I'm not saying that's worse than the WH40Kverse, but I'm very pointedly not saying it's better, either.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean._______________________________________________
"When Boba Fett told Darth Vader, "As you wish," what he meant was, "I love you.""
Phil the Piratical Platypus avatar by Serpentine
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2012-10-16, 02:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
In a post scarcity civilisation, it can be very hard to find meaning, but individual relevancy isn't a very good yardstick for the value of a culture.
The average person is utterly irrelevant in almost any of today's cultures - does that mean all of them are repugnant to you?
You don't like the Culture - that's fine. Plenty of people within the novels don't like the Culture including its own citizens, but despite the control you claim that they exert over them, they're completely free to renounce citizenship and leave (and quite large numbers have done).
Being sarcastic to get your point across isn't very helpful. In any case, anybody old enough to both comprehend and experience 1967 is pushing 60 at the moment.
I also think you're over-estimating the social effects and knowledge of the Summer of Love outside the US.
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2012-10-16, 04:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
I figured it for more like Reductio ab Absurdium, but either way. It's no secret that I tend toward the extremes, and in this case I don't consider the Culture to be the extreme anyway. The exact opposite of 40K's "all grimdark all the time" wouldn't be The Culture, where human beings are still interesting even to machines capable of simulating entire alternate universes; it'd be more like Jack Williamsons' "With Folded Hands", in which the robots won't let people do anything because it might be dangerous, so everyone just sits around bored out of their mind in the robots' suffocating custody forever. The Culture is light-years different from that IMO.
gives people all the apparent freedom of a pet
because the Minds will take care of everything that matters and see to all their needs. But that's dependence, not freedom.
Because Banks's idea of the ultimate human happiness has apparently never matured past "If it feels good, do it."
(Also... I'm guessing you haven't read Brave New World.)
[QUOTE=Brother Oni;14058400]In a post scarcity civilisation, it can be very hard to find meaning[/auote]
Which is very much part of the point of the books, and a dilemma for both Banks and the Minds on their respective sides of the fact/fiction divide; the Culture is aware of this problem and tries to do something about it, it's just very careful about making sure it doesn't do so via methods that are invasive enough to be more destructive than the status quo. Likewise, Banks doesn't write a lot of stories about individuals smack-dab in the middle of the Culture who do what the typical Culturian (as much as there is such a thing) does; he writes about the fringes because that's where the action's happening.
The average person is utterly irrelevant in almost any of today's cultures - does that mean all of them are repugnant to you?
You don't like the Culture - that's fine. Plenty of people within the novels don't like the Culture including its own citizens, but despite the control you claim that they exert over them, they're completely free to renounce citizenship and leave (and quite large numbers have done).Last edited by willpell; 2012-10-16 at 06:03 AM.
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2012-10-16, 06:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Having edited my previous post to take it down a notch where I was getting more personal than necessary, I will add this. If there is one thing I definitely do not care for about the Culture, its that the extent they go to in respecting others' preferences is a bit over the line (though I consider that more reasonable than going over the line in NOT doing so). I mean, mind-reading is about the worst thing they can conceive of short of mass murder, but the Gray Area is known for doing it, and all the other Minds do is give this ship a dirty name. Youd' think they'd at least demand it have its effectors removed or reduced in power or something; apparently the Culture is fairly toothless when it comes to prosecuting crimes, even if it is extremely good at discouraging them from occurring in the first place. That doesn't always cut the mustard and we know it; someone drew the parallel to the Federation of Star Trek before, and it really hits home there too, as it's another case of where there seems to be no mechanism for preventing bad things from happening other than the assumption that they just won't, which doesn't hold much water from where we sit.
So yeah, if you're gonna pick on The Culture, that's a much more serious fault in their M.O. than just "they make people soft by giving them too much happiness." There's a big gulf between idealism and naivete, and the Culture seems to be at least partly on the wrong side of that gap.Last edited by willpell; 2012-10-16 at 06:09 AM.
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2012-10-16, 07:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Thing is punishment is generally just a form of vengeance and/or deterrent. Ideally you have a justice system that rehabilitates and brings the person back into society as a useful member. You imprison someone to keep them from causing more harm to society. In the case of the Grey Area, I have to assume people are aware of its stigma and know they may be subject to mind reading if they are aboard it and/or interact with it. There is no need to separate it from society unless it starts doing things that people cannot protect themselves from.
I'm not really sure why you brought the Federation into it since I'm pretty sure they have prisons and the like and do send people there. For sure its mentioned on a few DS9 episodes, like where the Doctor's father gets sent to jail or when Eddington is held in a cell.
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2012-10-16, 08:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
The deterrent part is the thing that seems to be missing. And Star Trek's version of criminal justice was lacking at best. Both universes just assume that most people will get along, as if crimes of passion, lashing out due to stress, pathological greed where even post-scarcity resources aren't enough for you, or all manner of other deeply rooted psychological issues can simply be handwaved away. I know the idea is that everyone is very well-raised and well-adjusted, but we see nothing of how they got that way, it's just assumed. And it's a much more egregious example in ST, because that's only 4 centuries or so into the future, and humanity has not been significantly altered by science, so there ought to be people with abnormal brain chemistry or the like every once in a while. Unless medical screens are compulsory, some people would avoid them or falsify them, and avoid detection for several years until one day they can grab a phaser rifle and take out everyone on the bridge ending with themselves. That sort of thing happens once in our society and the entire nation freaks out and takes wildly exagerrated security precautions for years or decades thereafter, but we're supposed to believe that nowhere in Starfleet is the possibility even considered.
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2012-10-16, 11:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Deterrence is not really needed if the examples of crimes are crimes of passion or are extremely rare as is. It would imply they have some manner of deterrence that is already working quite well.
Really I find it far more likely we just don't see any of the normal criminal behavior and such with the Federation because its rare we sure purely Federation interactions on the show. There are plenty of episodes with penal colonies and the like. People get arrested, sent to the brig and such but we don't often look into standard federation planets. DS9 did delve a little more into it and it did show how people were imprisoned and the like. Despite their stance against genetic engineering, I believe they did mention that many genetic defects and the like are screened for (its just the enhancement they don't agree with for whatever reason).
I imagine for the Culture this type of screening/manipulation is even more common. Crimes of passion do exist even there, but considering the functional immortality of the citizens I suspect there are "loose" punishments because the impact of almost any crime is not nearly as severe as nowadays. They talk of making a drone follow you to ensure you don't continue to violate the law (basically harming others) as close to their most severe punishment. Frankly it seems pretty effective to me. If someone can be productive in society except they sometimes do X, as long as we prevent them from doing X, society can still benefit them. In our society today we decide someone does X we lock them away and prevent them from doing most things, because we don't have the capability of only preventing them from doing X. The Culture does not seem to have such an issue.
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2012-10-16, 02:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Culture Series
Or maybe altered brain chemistry is easily cured for the most part. I do imagine medical screenings are done quite often with all the beaming around and visiting other planets. Many of the shows mentioned the regular physicals people on the ships had. With tricorders etc I would imagine your basic physical is far more comprehensive than today's best medicine can do and probably would take less than 5 minutes out of someone's day.