Culture questions
Lee Chun Ming
I've just finished 'Look to Windward'. It's good to read a new Banks novel
after a while and I have to say that this is one of his better Culture
books. However, one thing that has become pronounced as I've gone through
his novels, especially his Cultures ones, is that his characters are
somewhat lacking.
They aren't 2-dimensional or unbelievable. It's just that I don't feel any
sort of attachment to them - i.e. they are more plot vehicles or talking
heads that allow him to convey his philo. to the reader more than living,
breathing creatures.
In itself, I have no problems with this but it would be nice to see him
develop a character rather than have a jaded protagonist who's seen and done
it all and takes everything in his stride as he's faced with one plot crisis
after another.
Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
*
*
*
*
*
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
*
*
*
*
*
*
What exactly happens in the Airsphere to Sansemin? I, more or less know
that the Estodien's flunky probably screwed up the entire system but why
would the Chelgrians do that to their supposed allies? And that leads on to
my next question, what happened to Uagen? I thought he had hitched a ride on
the alien craft? Thirdly, who were the backers of the Chelgrian plot? Hub
speculated that it could be rogue Minds wanting to shake the Culture from
its decadence, but comeon, I'm sure they could have thought of more elegant
methods rather than having several billion people murdered. Lastly, the
Chelgrian-Puen. The idea was cool but I can't believe that the Sublimed
would believe in an eye for an eye... shouldn't they have transcended all
that?
Chun Ming
RTR
a copy yet, and you're posting spoilers. You don't know how hard it was
to ignore the bottom part of your message just to get a *hint* of what I
have to look forward to.
(Kidding about the hate part. <grin>)
Regards,
RTR
"Lee Chun Ming" <leec...@magix.com.sg> wrote in message
news:8mruri$772$1...@dahlia.singnet.com.sg...
> Hullo,
> I've just finished 'Look to Windward'. It's good to read a new Banks
novel
> after a while and I have to say that this is one of his better Culture
> books. However, one thing that has become pronounced as I've gone
through
> his novels, especially his Cultures ones, is that his characters are
> somewhat lacking.
> They aren't 2-dimensional or unbelievable. It's just that I don't
feel any
> sort of attachment to them - i.e. they are more plot vehicles or
talking
> heads that allow him to convey his philo. to the reader more than
living,
> breathing creatures.
> In itself, I have no problems with this but it would be nice to see
him
> develop a character rather than have a jaded protagonist who's seen
and done
> it all and takes everything in his stride as he's faced with one plot
crisis
> after another.
>
> Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
<snipped>
Scott Sisson
> In itself, I have no problems with this but it would be nice to see him
> develop a character rather than have a jaded protagonist who's seen and done
> it all and takes everything in his stride as he's faced with one plot crisis
> after another.
i think the term for this is 'melodrama'
scott
[spoilers definitely snipped without reading]
TC (remove the . from the email address)
Lee Chun Ming wrote:
> They aren't 2-dimensional or unbelievable. It's just that I don't feel any
> sort of attachment to them - i.e. they are more plot vehicles or talking
> heads that allow him to convey his philo. to the reader more than living,
> breathing creatures.
Wouldn't say that I agree a 100% with you, but yes, Banks has a lot to
say and that sometimes hinders his characters a bit. I don't mind. I
actually like it.
> Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
>
> *
> *
> *
> *
> *
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
> S
> *
> *
> *
> *
> *
> *
We are serious here!
Spoilers for Look to Windward...
Now go away!
> What exactly happens in the Airsphere to Sansemin? I, more or less know
> that the Estodien's flunky probably screwed up the entire system but why
> would the Chelgrians do that to their supposed allies?
I think that the key to this, can be found in the Chelgrians
pray/predator psychology, but I don't have the book with me so I can't
reread the relevant parts...
> the alien craft? Thirdly, who were the backers of the Chelgrian plot? Hub
> speculated that it could be rogue Minds wanting to shake the Culture from
> its decadence, but comeon, I'm sure they could have thought of more elegant
> methods rather than having several billion people murdered.
This was the really scary part - the thought that Minds could start to
de-value flesh and blood humans enough to consider the possibility of
killing billions. This could signify a shift in values within the
Culture.
> Lastly, the
> Chelgrian-Puen. The idea was cool but I can't believe that the Sublimed
> would believe in an eye for an eye... shouldn't they have transcended all
> that?
We only have their word that they are actually Sublimed. One could argue
that really Sublimed intelligences wouldn't have regular contast with
the normal universe.
--
TC - http://www.tc.dk/
http://SFBook.com - Science fiction book reviews
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Lee Chun Ming wrote:
>
> > They aren't 2-dimensional or unbelievable. It's just that I don't feel any
> > sort of attachment to them - i.e. they are more plot vehicles or talking
> > heads that allow him to convey his philo. to the reader more than living,
> > breathing creatures.
>
> Wouldn't say that I agree a 100% with you, but yes, Banks has a lot to
> say and that sometimes hinders his characters a bit. I don't mind. I
> actually like it.
I don't know... I felt a lot for them.
The Behemotaurs are not their allies.
>
> > the alien craft? Thirdly, who were the backers of the Chelgrian plot? Hub
> > speculated that it could be rogue Minds wanting to shake the Culture from
> > its decadence, but comeon, I'm sure they could have thought of more elegant
> > methods rather than having several billion people murdered.
>
> This was the really scary part - the thought that Minds could start to
> de-value flesh and blood humans enough to consider the possibility of
> killing billions. This could signify a shift in values within the
> Culture.
Hell, what really, really bothered me is the fact that the _Culture_
would resort to retaliatory torture and murder! OK, so for the reader it
was satisfying, but on second thoughts, I _really_ don't like the
Culture agent murdering the Estodien and the white furry Chelgrian.
> > Lastly, the
> > Chelgrian-Puen. The idea was cool but I can't believe that the Sublimed
> > would believe in an eye for an eye... shouldn't they have transcended all
> > that?
>
> We only have their word that they are actually Sublimed. One could argue
> that really Sublimed intelligences wouldn't have regular contast with
> the normal universe.
We tend to think that Sublime means good, holy, godly. But we have no
real reason to make that logical jump, do we?
--
Cut out the attention signal in my address to mail me
Togliete l'avvertimento nel mio indirizzo per scrivermi
Matthew S
> > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
> > >
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > S
> > > P
> > > O
> > > I
> > > L
> > > E
> > > R
> > > S
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> >
> >
> > We are serious here!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Now go away!
> >
> >
> > > They aren't 2-dimensional or unbelievable. It's just that I don't feel any
> > > sort of attachment to them - i.e. they are more plot vehicles or talking
> > > heads that allow him to convey his philo. to the reader more than living,
> > > breathing creatures.
> >
> > Wouldn't say that I agree a 100% with you, but yes, Banks has a lot to
> > say and that sometimes hinders his characters a bit. I don't mind. I
> > actually like it.
>
> I don't know... I felt a lot for them.
Me too.
> > This was the really scary part - the thought that Minds could start to
> > de-value flesh and blood humans enough to consider the possibility of
> > killing billions. This could signify a shift in values within the
> > Culture.
>
> Hell, what really, really bothered me is the fact that the _Culture_
> would resort to retaliatory torture and murder! OK, so for the reader it
> was satisfying, but on second thoughts, I _really_ don't like the
> Culture agent murdering the Estodien and the white furry Chelgrian.
I didn't think that the murders where committed by a Culture agent
because this kind of retaliation is not what Contact is about. I think
the murders were committed by whoever the allies of the Chelgrian
conspiracy were and that the murders were done in order to tie up the
loose ends (pun not intended) of the failed plot. Of course if the
allies were some kind of rogue Culture Mind group, then it was they that
did the killings of the two Chelgrians, but then it was not The Culture
per se that did the murders but just members of The Culture - still
disturbing but not as disturbing.
I have just thought of some evidence for this. How would the Culture
know how to kill the white furry Chelgrian in the appropriate way, by
throwing him off the cliff? The SC agent, Huyler, was not inside the
Major's mind at this point and there is no mention of the major telling
Huyler about it. On the other hand the allies did have a presence at the
time of the Invisible's murder in the form of the two disguised drones
and so would know how to kill the Chelgrian in an appropriate and
unpleasant way.
BTW disguising drones has a precedent in The Player Of Games, the
'library' drone that accompanies Gurgeu (which later turns out to be
Flere Ishamo), is disguised by being in a ridiculous casing. But, I
suppose, if the conspirators were from any of the other Involveds then
they would wish to hide their technology too.
Personally I'd like the conspirators to be the Idirians, for whom the
timing of the orbitals attempted murders and especially the death of the
Hub would be most appropriate.
..matthew
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Matthew S <no.tha...@junk.mail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
> > > >
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > S
> > > > P
> > > > O
> > > > I
> > > > L
> > > > E
> > > > R
> > > > S
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> I didn't think that the murders where committed by a Culture agent
> because this kind of retaliation is not what Contact is about. I think
> the murders were committed by whoever the allies of the Chelgrian
> conspiracy were and that the murders were done in order to tie up the
> loose ends (pun not intended) of the failed plot. Of course if the
> allies were some kind of rogue Culture Mind group, then it was they that
> did the killings of the two Chelgrians, but then it was not The Culture
> per se that did the murders but just members of The Culture - still
> disturbing but not as disturbing.
You may well be right. It would be cheating (!), but then Banks cheated
in the prologue as well, didn't he?
--
Substitute tin to nit to mail me
Sostituire tin a nit per scrivermi
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Richard Shewmaker
>
> Hullo,
> I've just finished 'Look to Windward'.
<snip>
> Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
>
> *
> *
> *
> *
> *
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
> S
> *
> *
> *
> *
> *
> *
>
> What exactly happens in the Airsphere to Sansemin? I, more or less know
> that the Estodien's flunky probably screwed up the entire system but why
> would the Chelgrians do that to their supposed allies? And that leads on to
> my next question, what happened to Uagen? I thought he had hitched a ride on
> the alien craft? Thirdly, who were the backers of the Chelgrian plot? Hub
> speculated that it could be rogue Minds wanting to shake the Culture from
> its decadence, but comeon, I'm sure they could have thought of more elegant
> methods rather than having several billion people murdered. Lastly, the
> Chelgrian-Puen. The idea was cool but I can't believe that the Sublimed
> would believe in an eye for an eye... shouldn't they have transcended all
> that?
All my comments are based on a first read, and as such much of what I'll
say is impression-based, so please don't jump all over me!
I don't think the behemothaurs were Chelgrian allies -- I think the
airsphere was just a good place, in the Chelgrians' opinion, to do
things which would most likely be undetectable to the Culture. I'd guess
they, perhaps with help from their allies, destroyed Sansemin when they
were done in the airsphere -- although a dangerous thing to do (I say
dangerous because of the comments about civilizations who were too
abrupt in their dealings with the airspheres and what happened to them),
I'd guess they meant to cover their tracks because they were trying
pretty hard to keep anyone from finding out how the planned destruction
of the orbital actually occurred.
Estodien mentions the Chelgrians found out that (a) they had been
infiltrated by a Culture spy and (b) that there was a Culture citizen in
the airsphere. I suspect that they did the same thing Uagen did and
figured out the likely means of transportation from the airsphere (and
probably checked transmissions to and from the airsphere) and either
coerced the traders or maybe boarded them after they picked up Uagen.
I don't know exactly why, but I'd be surprised if a faction of the
Culture ended up being the mysterious allies of the Chelgrians. It seems
too severe, for one thing, for another, the plans were known to the
Culture much of the time, which for lots of reasons leads me to believe
it must have been some other lot, maybe something allied with the
Chelgrian-Puen, which was working to destroy the orbital.
I need to read the book again, more slowly, before I think I can say
anything better. That will be a bit since I just started "Perdido Street
Station" (and might have one or two other books to get to next, ha ha).
___ ___
_留|||ｯ誉 RGS _留|||ｯ誉
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My mother used to laugh and say that the only thing my father wouldn't
do for Axel Kern was promise him his only child. Of course, she was
wrong about that.
-- Elizabeth Hand, "Black Light"
Matthew S
> > > > >
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > S
> > > > > P
> > > > > O
> > > > > I
> > > > > L
> > > > > E
> > > > > R
> > > > > S
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
> > > > > *
>
> > because this kind of retaliation is not what Contact is about. I think
> > the murders were committed by whoever the allies of the Chelgrian
> > conspiracy were and that the murders were done in order to tie up the
> > loose ends (pun not intended) of the failed plot. Of course if the
> > allies were some kind of rogue Culture Mind group, then it was they that
> > did the killings of the two Chelgrians, but then it was not The Culture
> > per se that did the murders but just members of The Culture - still
> > disturbing but not as disturbing.
>
> You may well be right. It would be cheating (!), but then Banks cheated
> in the prologue as well, didn't he?
Cheating?
..matthew
Lee Chun Ming
Richard Shewmaker
<ric...@astrokillalllspamphos.com>
wrote in message
news:39A09EE7.AD62BCF3@astrokillalllspam
phos.com...
> Lee Chun Ming wrote:
<snip>
>
> I need to read the book again, more
slowly, before I think I can say
> anything better. That will be a bit
since I just started "Perdido Street
> Station" (and might have one or two
other books to get to next, ha ha).
>
Odd. I've just finished Perdido Street
Station after reading LTW too.
Good book. In some ways, a more
interesting read than LTW. Like the
steampunk/magic backdrop to the entire
story... New Crobuzon... god what a
hell hole.
Anyway, good book.
Lee Chun Ming
> ___ ___
> _-Å»|||Å»-_ RGS _-Å»|||Å»-_
Richard Shewmaker
<snip>
> Odd. I've just finished Perdido Street
> Station after reading LTW too.
> Good book. In some ways, a more
> interesting read than LTW. Like the
> steampunk/magic backdrop to the entire
> story... New Crobuzon... god what a
> hell hole.
I'd love to discuss once I've finished the book. Would you? If so, here
or in rec.arts.sf.written (or elsewhere)?
I'm only 65 pages into it so far, so it will be a bit....
___ ___
_留|||ｯ誉 RGS _留|||ｯ誉
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You will find no new lands, you will find no other seas. The city will
follow you. You will roam the same streets. And you will age in the same
neighborhoods; and you will grow gray in these same houses. Always you
will arrive in this city. Do not hope for any other ...
-- Constantine P. Cavafy, "The City"
Kathrin Paschen
>
> TC (remove the . from the email address) <t...@tc.dk> wrote:
>
> > Lee Chun Ming wrote:
> > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
> > >
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > S
> > > P
> > > O
> > > I
> > > L
> > > E
> > > R
> > > S
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > *
> >
> > Spoilers for Look to Windward...
> >
> > > the alien craft? Thirdly, who were the backers of the Chelgrian plot? Hub
> > > speculated that it could be rogue Minds wanting to shake the Culture from
> > > its decadence, but comeon, I'm sure they could have thought of more elegant
> > > methods rather than having several billion people murdered.
> >
> > This was the really scary part - the thought that Minds could start to
> > de-value flesh and blood humans enough to consider the possibility of
> > killing billions. This could signify a shift in values within the
> > Culture.
>
> Hell, what really, really bothered me is the fact that the _Culture_
> would resort to retaliatory torture and murder! OK, so for the reader it
> was satisfying, but on second thoughts, I _really_ don't like the
> Culture agent murdering the Estodien and the white furry Chelgrian.
It could have been not the Culture itself, but the 'rogue minds'. Some
of the hints seem to imply that the murders of Estodien and the other
Chelgrian were committed with Culture technology, so I'd say those are
the only two possibilities. The rogue minds might want to a) silence
the only Chelgrians who could provide a clue to their identity and b)
keep the Chelgrians' hatred of the Culture alive for future use.
On the other hand, I seem to remember Masaq' Hub (in the final scene
with Quilan) saying that a few Chelgrians might be killed for their
evil plans, but I would have expected the deaths to be a little more,
well, humane.
Of course, the Culture might well have intended to kill the
Estodien. The rogue minds would have known this, so they went ahead
with the killing and took care to make it well more atrocious than it
needed to be. It will be hard for the Culture to deny that they had
any part in the killings (they were planning them, too, after all).
Am I making sense?
> > > Lastly, the
> > > Chelgrian-Puen. The idea was cool but I can't believe that the Sublimed
> > > would believe in an eye for an eye... shouldn't they have transcended all
> > > that?
> >
> > We only have their word that they are actually Sublimed. One could argue
> > that really Sublimed intelligences wouldn't have regular contast with
> > the normal universe.
>
> We tend to think that Sublime means good, holy, godly. But we have no
> real reason to make that logical jump, do we?
Also, our idea of 'holy, godly' might not be the same as another
species'. Maybe they are 'rogue Sublimed'? They do seem to have access
to technology far beyond the reach of the non-Sublimed.
I thought the whole idea of 'religion made real' was very good. The
Chelgrians had already come to terms with the idea that their
religious texts were largely metaphorical, and then their Sublimed
went ahead and made them a description of reality. Imagine someone
doing that with one of the earth's religions. Or several, for that
matter.
--
Kathrin Paschen pas...@ira.uka.de
As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
Lee Chun Ming
<ric...@astrovaporizeallspamphos.com>
wrote in message
news:39A1F7EA.2A32A7A1@astrovaporizealls
pamphos.com...
> Lee Chun Ming wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Odd. I've just finished Perdido
Street
> > Station after reading LTW too.
> > Good book. In some ways, a more
> > interesting read than LTW. Like the
> > steampunk/magic backdrop to the
entire
> > story... New Crobuzon... god what a
> > hell hole.
>
> I'd love to discuss once I've finished
the book. Would you? If so, here
> or in rec.arts.sf.written (or
elsewhere)?
>
Here's fine.
> I'm only 65 pages into it so far, so
it will be a bit....
>
> ___ ___
> _-Å»|||Å»-_ RGS _-Å»|||Å»-_
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Matthew S <no.tha...@junk.mail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
> >
> > You may well be right. It would be cheating (!), but then Banks cheated
> > in the prologue as well, didn't he?
>
> Cheating?
Well, the assassin say pretty clearly that "It was a Culture terror
weapon." Of course, it would have said the same if it was from the rogue
minds.
As for the other, writing the prologue from Worosei's point of view was
a bit too much close to cheating for me to be completely happy with it.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Lee Chun Ming <leec...@magix.com.sg> wrote:
> Odd. I've just finished Perdido Street
> Station after reading LTW too.
Allright, this is the fourth person telling me how great PSS is. I was
waiting for the paperback but I guess I'll have to at least put it in my
shopping basket now.
Matthew S
> > > You may well be right. It would be cheating (!), but then Banks cheated
> > > in the prologue as well, didn't he?
> >
> > Cheating?
>
> Well, the assassin say pretty clearly that "It was a Culture terror
> weapon." Of course, it would have said the same if it was from the rogue
> minds.
Does it, how did I not notice or forget!? I'll re-read and comment soon.
..matthew
Richard Shewmaker
I think you're making GREAT sense.
> > > > Lastly, the
> > > > Chelgrian-Puen. The idea was cool but I can't believe that the Sublimed
> > > > would believe in an eye for an eye... shouldn't they have transcended all
> > > > that?
> > >
> > > We only have their word that they are actually Sublimed. One could argue
> > > that really Sublimed intelligences wouldn't have regular contast with
> > > the normal universe.
> >
> > We tend to think that Sublime means good, holy, godly. But we have no
> > real reason to make that logical jump, do we?
>
> Also, our idea of 'holy, godly' might not be the same as another
> species'. Maybe they are 'rogue Sublimed'? They do seem to have access
> to technology far beyond the reach of the non-Sublimed.
> I thought the whole idea of 'religion made real' was very good. The
> Chelgrians had already come to terms with the idea that their
> religious texts were largely metaphorical, and then their Sublimed
> went ahead and made them a description of reality. Imagine someone
> doing that with one of the earth's religions. Or several, for that
> matter.
Again, yes -- Banks says that the Chelgrian subliming was rather
atypical in many ways -- how it was only a percentage of the population
and that they then stayed in touch -- so it would make sense if they did
things which did not fit the picture for what one might expect from a
sublimed culture. My personal opinion on the Puen is that they're sort
of immature sublimed beings, or maybe not fully sublimed.
___ ___
_留|||ｯ誉 RGS _留|||ｯ誉
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very
old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless
color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit
night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved
like a shadow on the sea.
-- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
Richard Shewmaker
>
> > > > > > > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
>
> > > > in the prologue as well, didn't he?
> > >
> > > Cheating?
> >
> > Well, the assassin say pretty clearly that "It was a Culture terror
> > weapon." Of course, it would have said the same if it was from the rogue
> > minds.
>
> Does it, how did I not notice or forget!? I'll re-read and comment soon.
>
> ..matthew
Page 170 toward the end of the chapter "The Memory of Running."
___ ___
_留|||ｯ誉 RGS _留|||ｯ誉
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The monuments above the dead
Are too eroded to be read.
-- Edward Gorey, "The Iron Tonic"
Chris Lynas
The _one_ time I break the habit of a lifetime and buy the hardback of a
book so as to be able to discuss it the first time round and I'm going
through it working out all of the frightfully urbane and insightful things
I'm going to say about it... and you swines got there first! (Curse you
Blackwells for making me wait until you got it in so I could buy it half
price :)
Still, _lots_ of nice piccies in there, I had been quite stalled but now I
have many projects in mind :)
--
Chris Lynas
--
http://www.excession.swinternet.co.uk
http://members.tripod.com/a.b.i-b
http://www.fastness.co.uk
"Richard Shewmaker" <ric...@astroyuckspamyuckphos.com> wrote in message
news:39A449D9...@astroyuckspamyuckphos.com...
> Matthew S wrote:
> >
> > > > > > > > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
> >
> > > > > You may well be right. It would be cheating (!), but then Banks
cheated
> > > > > in the prologue as well, didn't he?
> > > >
> > > > Cheating?
> > >
> > > Well, the assassin say pretty clearly that "It was a Culture terror
> > > weapon." Of course, it would have said the same if it was from the
rogue
> > > minds.
> >
> > Does it, how did I not notice or forget!? I'll re-read and comment soon.
> >
> > ..matthew
>
> Page 170 toward the end of the chapter "The Memory of Running."
>
> ___ ___
> _-Å»|||Å»-_ RGS _-Å»|||Å»-_
therother
Matthew S <no.tha...@junk.mail.com> wrote in message
news:39A3FA26...@junk.mail.com...
> > > > > > > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
>
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I have just had a thought - what if the supposed attempt to kill the Hub
Mind was an "officially" sanctioned SC action that was always meant to fail?
If the co-conspirators were SC, they must have known that Huyler was a SC
agent. I find it highly suspicious that the construct that they were
looking for was just found in time for the mission. Also, why was Huyler
chosen over all the other constructs or currently serving personnel? For
that matter, why did SC turn him the first place? Is it possible that this
is another Excession type pre-planned conspiracy?
The only problem that I can see with this theory is the actions of the SC
agent which took control of the behemothaur Sansemin. However, I suppose it
is possible that he wasn't fully in the plan, maybe he was just monitoring
the situation for the conspiring Minds.
As to the terror killing of the two Chelgrians, it strikes me that we don't
actually know when these events take place; they could have been killed
immediately after Quilan set off. All the chapters that deal with the
Terror thing (and incidentally those dealing with the red herring that was
Uagen Zlepe) are outside the numbering of the chapters which suggests, to me
anyway, that they are outside the time-line of the rest of the book.
Personally I think that it was there, just as the book says, "to horrify,
warn, and instruct at the highest level." The Culture likes to deal with
life, but planning to kill 5 billion of its own people in the sneak attack
perhaps even stretches the Culture patience. They left the security systems
recording and made sure by the use of the nano-missiles that the message was
"don't fuck with the Culture."
A point that no-one has raised so far is that if the killings were done by
"rogue" Minds, who were planning to hide their involvement, why do they make
sure that everyone knows that they killed these Chel? Why use such an
obviously Culture manufactured machine?
Anyway, that's my paranoid ramblings,
therother
P.S. In Excession, Chapter 9, VII, there is the passage - "Blitteringueh
Conglo actuates Abuereffe Airsphere - latest". I wonder if there is any
connection to LTW?
James DiBenedetto
therother wrote:
> Matthew S <no.tha...@junk.mail.com> wrote in message
> news:39A3FA26...@junk.mail.com...
> > > > > > > > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> I have just had a thought - what if the supposed attempt to kill the Hub
> Mind was an "officially" sanctioned SC action that was always meant to fail?
>
I wondered if it might not go even further than that.
>
> If the co-conspirators were SC, they must have known that Huyler was a SC
> agent. I find it highly suspicious that the construct that they were
> looking for was just found in time for the mission. Also, why was Huyler
> chosen over all the other constructs or currently serving personnel? For
> that matter, why did SC turn him the first place? Is it possible that this
> is another Excession type pre-planned conspiracy?
>
What if *everything* was a conspiracy? What if the original intervention on
Chel was meant to blow up as it did? If it wasn't a fuck-up by Contact at all?
If we assume that Contact/SC generally knows what it's doing and does very
thorough research on civilizations it's going to intervene in, I think it's
reasonable to assume that they realized that nothing short of a bloody civil war
would really and truly break the caste system, and the whole plan was to foment
such a war, let the Chelgrians bloody themselves, and then stop the war by
revealing their involvement.
If that's true, and if Contact/SC really did its homework, they'd know that how
the Chelgrian-Puen would react with regard to the victims of the war, which
segues nicely into the plot to kill Masaq' Hub. Which has the added benefit of
really shaking up some people in the Culture.
>
> The only problem that I can see with this theory is the actions of the SC
> agent which took control of the behemothaur Sansemin. However, I suppose it
> is possible that he wasn't fully in the plan, maybe he was just monitoring
> the situation for the conspiring Minds.
>
I agree. I can see SC deliberately starting a war on Chel; I can even see it
being willing to kill 5 billion Culture inhabitants to make a point. But I
can't see them killing an entirely innocent third party...especially given the
track record of other civilizations that messed with the behemothaurs.
>
> As to the terror killing of the two Chelgrians, it strikes me that we don't
> actually know when these events take place; they could have been killed
> immediately after Quilan set off. All the chapters that deal with the
> Terror thing (and incidentally those dealing with the red herring that was
> Uagen Zlepe) are outside the numbering of the chapters which suggests, to me
> anyway, that they are outside the time-line of the rest of the book.
>
> Personally I think that it was there, just as the book says, "to horrify,
> warn, and instruct at the highest level." The Culture likes to deal with
> life, but planning to kill 5 billion of its own people in the sneak attack
> perhaps even stretches the Culture patience. They left the security systems
> recording and made sure by the use of the nano-missiles that the message was
> "don't fuck with the Culture."
>
> A point that no-one has raised so far is that if the killings were done by
> "rogue" Minds, who were planning to hide their involvement, why do they make
> sure that everyone knows that they killed these Chel? Why use such an
> obviously Culture manufactured machine?
>
the individual Minds involved might not want it known what they did, but they
might well still want the Culture as a whole to be identified as the responsible
party.
--
"She had unnecessarily put an entire town in emotional
chaos, committed a basketful of federal crimes as well
as breaking nearly every ethical standard in her field,
and one of her patients had possibly been murdered,
but she felt, well, sort of excited."
- Christopher Moore, "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove"
Richard Shewmaker
Good ideas / thoughts / observations -- I'm going to print this one out
and read it over before re-reading "Look to Windward" -- thanks!
___ ___
_留|||ｯ誉 RGS _留|||ｯ誉
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What are you doing up so late?"
"I'm counting the stars."
"Do you really know all their names?"
"Yes, I do."
"How many did you count?"
"A hundred."
"There are more than a hundred."
"I know."
"Why did you stop?"
"A hundred is enough. Once you've counted a hundred, all the other
hundreds are the same."
-- Peter Greenaway, "Drowning by Numbers"
(Cissy #1 and Rope Skipping Girl)
therother
James DiBenedetto <star...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:39A840AC...@bellatlantic.net...
>
>
> therother wrote:
>
> > Matthew S <no.tha...@junk.mail.com> wrote in message
> > news:39A3FA26...@junk.mail.com...
> > > > > > > > > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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>
on
> Chel was meant to blow up as it did? If it wasn't a fuck-up by Contact at
all?
I was thinking along the same lines myself. Though I'm glad that I'm not
the only one :-)
> If we assume that Contact/SC generally knows what it's doing and does very
> thorough research on civilizations it's going to intervene in, I think
it's
> reasonable to assume that they realized that nothing short of a bloody
civil war
> would really and truly break the caste system, and the whole plan was to
foment
> such a war, let the Chelgrians bloody themselves, and then stop the war by
> revealing their involvement.
Indeed. Drastic measures were taken to get rid of the Empire of Azad, which
was another civilisation which had reached an advanced stage but still
hadn't broken free of some of it's distasteful historical baggage.
therother
Richard Shewmaker
>
> At 10:14pm on Saturday, therother wrote:
>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :>
> :
<snip>
> It makes more sense if the message isn't "Don't fuck with the Culture" but
> "Hey, it was the Culture who did this" - when the Chlegrians discovered
> the Culture was responsible for their civil war they were bent on revenge.
> From the way they come across I think that discovering that the Culture
> had tortured and murdered two high-ranking members of their society would
> have them clamouring for blood rather than scared into being good. If
> whoever was behind it wanted to foment war between the Chelgrians and the
> Culture then using an 'obviously Culture terror-weapon' would be a good
> way to go about it.
I don't know -- if it was clear that an extremist Chelgrian fringe
terrorist group had intended to destroy an orbital, and just the two
leaders of that group had been punished, the Chelgrians might be more
upset that the attempt was made than that two rather evil members of
their culture were eliminated.
> On an unrelated question: why does Banks (or why do Minds, I suppose) seem
> to have a peculiar obsession with a lack of gravitas? I've noticed ships
> called "Zero Gravitas", "Very Little Gravitas Indeed" and "Experiencing a
> Significant Gravitas Shortfall", and one of the chapter titles in LtW is
> (quite aptly) "Absence of Gravitas."
There are some comments by Banks in the chat session he had recently
which John Mullen put together at
http://www.johnmullen.org.uk/banks_chat.html -- go there and do a find
on "gravitas" ... won't explain all but a little.
___ ___
_留|||ｯ誉 RGS _留|||ｯ誉
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steven Pearson
At 10:14pm on Saturday, therother wrote:
:>
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:
:Personally I think that it was there, just as the book says, "to horrify,
:warn, and instruct at the highest level." The Culture likes to deal with
:life, but planning to kill 5 billion of its own people in the sneak attack
:perhaps even stretches the Culture patience. They left the security systems
:recording and made sure by the use of the nano-missiles that the message was
:"don't fuck with the Culture."
:
:A point that no-one has raised so far is that if the killings were done by
:"rogue" Minds, who were planning to hide their involvement, why do they make
:sure that everyone knows that they killed these Chel? Why use such an
:obviously Culture manufactured machine?
It makes more sense if the message isn't "Don't fuck with the Culture" but
"Hey, it was the Culture who did this" - when the Chlegrians discovered
the Culture was responsible for their civil war they were bent on revenge.
From the way they come across I think that discovering that the Culture
had tortured and murdered two high-ranking members of their society would
have them clamouring for blood rather than scared into being good. If
whoever was behind it wanted to foment war between the Chelgrians and the
Culture then using an 'obviously Culture terror-weapon' would be a good
way to go about it.
On an unrelated question: why does Banks (or why do Minds, I suppose) seem
to have a peculiar obsession with a lack of gravitas? I've noticed ships
called "Zero Gravitas", "Very Little Gravitas Indeed" and "Experiencing a
Significant Gravitas Shortfall", and one of the chapter titles in LtW is
(quite aptly) "Absence of Gravitas."
Steve.
--
Just another victim of the ambient morality
Phil Clark
<no.tha...@junk.mail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Anyway, some questions about 'Look To Windward':
>> > >
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > S
>> > > P
>> > > O
>> > > I
>> > > L
>> > > E
>> > > R
>> > > S
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> > > *
>> >
>> >
>> > We are serious here!
>> >
>> >
>> > Spoilers for Look to Windward... and The Player of Games
>> >
>> >
>> Hell, what really, really bothered me is the fact that the _Culture_
>> would resort to retaliatory torture and murder! OK, so for the reader it
>> was satisfying, but on second thoughts, I _really_ don't like the
>> Culture agent murdering the Estodien and the white furry Chelgrian.
>
>I didn't think that the murders where committed by a Culture agent
>because this kind of retaliation is not what Contact is about. I think
>the murders were committed by whoever the allies of the Chelgrian
>conspiracy were and that the murders were done in order to tie up the
>loose ends (pun not intended) of the failed plot. Of course if the
>allies were some kind of rogue Culture Mind group, then it was they that
>did the killings of the two Chelgrians, but then it was not The Culture
>per se that did the murders but just members of The Culture - still
>disturbing but not as disturbing.
>
>I have just thought of some evidence for this. How would the Culture
>know how to kill the white furry Chelgrian in the appropriate way, by
>throwing him off the cliff? The SC agent, Huyler, was not inside the
>Major's mind at this point and there is no mention of the major telling
>Huyler about it. On the other hand the allies did have a presence at the
>time of the Invisible's murder in the form of the two disguised drones
>and so would know how to kill the Chelgrian in an appropriate and
>unpleasant way.
But we know that the Culture can read minds, it just has a big taboo
against doing it. It may be that the terror weapon read White Fur's
mind just before killing him, to determine an appropriate way of doing
it. After all, as far as we know *no one* other than the Estodien
knew he had an insect phobia and that therefore that was an
appropriate way of killing him, unless his mind was read.
In any case, Masaq' Hub told Quilan "A handful of individuals -
certainly no more - may pay with their lives". It was planned.
As you can probably tell, I've just finished LTW and can now read 200+
saved posts...
RTR
> As you can probably tell, I've just finished LTW and can now read 200+
> saved posts...
Yeah, me too. I felt kinda cheated to see that the vast majority of the
LTW threads are a sociopolitical debate that has nothing to do with the
book. Not that the debate wasn't well-thought-out or interesting, but
it just wasn't the LTW discussion I was pining for as I raced through
the book this week. :)
RTR
Evileye
> >know how to kill the white furry Chelgrian in the appropriate way, by
> >throwing him off the cliff? The SC agent, Huyler, was not inside the
> >Major's mind at this point and there is no mention of the major telling
> >Huyler about it. On the other hand the allies did have a presence at the
> >time of the Invisible's murder in the form of the two disguised drones
> >and so would know how to kill the Chelgrian in an appropriate and
> >unpleasant way.
Not as far as I could see. The Blinded Invisible was killed by the white
furry one (name? I dont have the book here) whilst they were still on Chel -
before the Chelgrians' alien allies showed their faces. However, it is
possible that Huyler was able to read Quilan's mind by osmosis over the
period - and this information was then relayed to the terror weapon.
I think that this harked back to earlier in the nover when Huyler was
talking to Quilan about the fact that the Culture would never retaliate to
the planned attack - he obviously knew that they would.
Just finished LTW - fantastic. I thought at first that it was turning out to
be a much more philosophical, laid back culture book than most - but in the
end it was just as tense and enthraling as any other.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Not that the debate wasn't well-thought-out or interesting, but
> it just wasn't the LTW discussion I was pining for as I raced through
> the book this week. :)
We were waiting for you, guys. :-)
--
Cut out the attention signal in my address to mail me
Togliete l'avvertimento nel mio indirizzo per scrivermi
Richard Puchalsky
> Yeah, me too. I felt kinda cheated to see that the vast majority of the
> LTW threads are a sociopolitical debate that has nothing to do with the
> it just wasn't the LTW discussion I was pining for as I raced through
> the book this week. :)
Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
Frankly, there's not much to discuss with LTW, in comparison with Banks'
better books. We've been over the reason for the behemothaurs, the secret
plot of the allies, the general decadence of the Culture as newly depicted
in this book, the bad guy stereotyping, and the IMO miserably stupid ending.
What else is there?
RTR
And me with nothing to say now...<for shame>.
RTR
"Anna Feruglio Dal Dan" <ada...@libero.attentioncutmeout.it> wrote in
message news:1ehdkw1.h9l0869gephcN@[151.15.166.92]...
> RTR <remskirt@if_yer_a_spammer_no_one_is_home.com> wrote:
>
> > Not that the debate wasn't well-thought-out or interesting, but
> > it just wasn't the LTW discussion I was pining for as I raced
through
> > the book this week. :)
>
Philip Armstrong
Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>RTR <remskirt@if_yer_a_spammer_no_one_is_home.com> wrote:
>> Yeah, me too. I felt kinda cheated to see that the vast majority of the
>> LTW threads are a sociopolitical debate that has nothing to do with the
>> it just wasn't the LTW discussion I was pining for as I raced through
>> the book this week. :)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Frankly, there's not much to discuss with LTW, in comparison with Banks'
>better books. We've been over the reason for the behemothaurs, the secret
>plot of the allies, the general decadence of the Culture as newly depicted
>in this book, the bad guy stereotyping, and the IMO miserably stupid ending.
>What else is there?
Good question. Some people may remember the argument that was had here
a few weeks ago over whether Banks' use of violence was
good/bad/whatever, especially with respect to Inversions. I don't know
about anyone else, but I found the violence at the end of LtW
gratuitous in a way that I haven't found Banksian violence to be
before. Its left a bitter taste at the end of an otherwise interesting
book. Not his best perhaps, but a worthwhile read nonetheless.
And my newsserver has thrown away all the earlier LtW articles (though
I may have marked them as read --- I'll go back and have a look ---
stand by for extra replies to old articles :) )
On an entirely different front, I have to saw that I saw the 'twist'
(such as it was) coming a mile off. Is Banks getting more obvious, or
am i just expecting things to not be quite as they seem anymore with
our Iain? I wonder what the impact of books like Inversion or LtW
would be if I was coming to them cold, without having read the rest of
Banks' ouvre...
just a few random meanderings...
Phil
--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >RTR <remskirt@if_yer_a_spammer_no_one_is_home.com> wrote:
> >> Yeah, me too. I felt kinda cheated to see that the vast majority of
the
> >> LTW threads are a sociopolitical debate that has nothing to do with the
> >> book. Not that the debate wasn't well-thought-out or interesting, but
> >> it just wasn't the LTW discussion I was pining for as I raced through
> >> the book this week. :)
> >
> >Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Frankly, there's not much to discuss with LTW, in comparison with Banks'
> >better books. We've been over the reason for the behemothaurs, the
secret
> >plot of the allies, the general decadence of the Culture as newly
depicted
> >in this book, the bad guy stereotyping, and the IMO miserably stupid
ending.
> >What else is there?
>
> Good question. Some people may remember the argument that was had here
> a few weeks ago over whether Banks' use of violence was
> good/bad/whatever, especially with respect to Inversions. I don't know
> about anyone else, but I found the violence at the end of LtW
> gratuitous in a way that I haven't found Banksian violence to be
> before.
Oops, I assumed that that was part of what the oriignal poster was talking
about when they wrote about sociopolitical debate. The LTW threads that
your newsreader threw out contained a long discussion of the death penalty,
being "tough on terrorism", and other aspects of this ending scene. That
scene was what I was referring to as the "IMO miserably stupid ending".
Another poster (BaldiePete I think, sorry if I remembered wrong) suggested
that Banks' books have been in a clear decline starting with AADB. I agree
except that I put the start of the decline at Complicity, the book before
AADB in publication order. So I don't think that Inversions and LTW seem
more obvious because you're more familiar with Banks, I think that they are
just not as good as his earlier work.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> >Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
I've introduced a couple, for The Wasp Factory, and Excession...
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >Frankly, there's not much to discuss with LTW, in comparison with Banks'
>> >better books. We've been over the reason for the behemothaurs, the
>secret
>> >plot of the allies, the general decadence of the Culture as newly
>depicted
>> >in this book, the bad guy stereotyping, and the IMO miserably stupid
>ending.
I've lost most of the "bad guy stereotyping" arguments as I
inadvertently managed to unsubscribe from a.b.i-b and lost the old
threads. But I remember thinking that the reasoning "Banks has set up
this person to be 'evil' and therefore it's good for them to be
killed" is only one interpretation. The other is just that "shit
happens". Someone does things that we normally consider to be bad,
and later on they get killed. Why argue cause and effect?
>> >What else is there?
>>
>> Good question. Some people may remember the argument that was had here
>> a few weeks ago over whether Banks' use of violence was
>> good/bad/whatever, especially with respect to Inversions. I don't know
>> about anyone else, but I found the violence at the end of LtW
>> gratuitous in a way that I haven't found Banksian violence to be
>> before.
I disagree with this - surely throughout the Culture books SC has been
capable of the use of premeditated and casual violence when it suits
its ends. I'll repeat what I said in an earlier post and which
probably got lost in the sociopolitical argument and which I will
throw back in to stir the pot again...
From what I've seen, Special Circumstances seems to generally behave
in a completely amoral way. The fact that there is no death penalty
(or even no concept of crime and punishment) within the Culture surely
does not preclude SC agents from deciding to kill two people in an
utterly horrific way if that's what computes to be the best way to
proceed.
After all we know that SC is prepared to meddle in other civilisations
and even to provoke a horrific civil war, and Masaq' Hub, when it was
a GSV, was prepared to destroy three Culture orbitals *with people on*
as a necessary act of war to deny them to the enemy.
I think that all this shows is that when very important decisions are
made, they tend to be made by AIs and done according to pure logic.
They therefore may seem out of character to humans who will normally
make similar decisions based at least partly on emotional or
sentimental reasoning.
And, in addition, throughout Banks' works, from TWF onwards, surely
gratuitous and grotesque killings are commonplace. What makes the two
killings at the end of LTW worse than the "bang the bell" and the
"cousin & the kite" killings in TWF?
>Another poster (BaldiePete I think, sorry if I remembered wrong) suggested
>that Banks' books have been in a clear decline starting with AADB. I agree
>except that I put the start of the decline at Complicity, the book before
>AADB in publication order. So I don't think that Inversions and LTW seem
>more obvious because you're more familiar with Banks, I think that they are
>just not as good as his earlier work.
I think that Inversions and LTW are a *bit* more obvious - there is a
bit more of a linear story being told (with a few dead ends) than in
say Weapons or Excession, and they require less knowledge of the
Culture to enjoy. As someone who has recently started reading the IMB
books having been a long-term IB fan I think the recent SF books hold
their own, albeit without the flashy literary tour-de-force aspect of
Weapons. In the IB books, I'd date the decline from *after*
Complicity: Complicity wasn't quite as good as Crow Road, which I
think is arguably one of his two best non-SF books, but I think it
compares reasonably well (even favourably) with some of the preceding
ones. But of the succeeding ones, TB and Whit, while quite engaging,
are fairly lightweight and the jury's still out on ASOS (but I'm going
to reread it shortly).
Another comment made, I think about the Culture's increasing
decadence, was regret at the re-invention of "money" due to demand
outstrippping supply for Ziller's concert. Well, I'm re-reading
Excession and there's a comment about the sex troupe Genar-Hofoen
books on Tier as being "expensive" - which says something about there
still being some means of exchange in the Culture and the fact that
you can apparently hire people for sexual please. So it's not all
rosy in the Culture - maybe we've just got used to the clinical core
Culture of ships' minds and forgotten there's considerable diversity
in the Culture. And Ulver Seich, again in Excession, seems to be a
part of an aristocracy on Phage Rock that may be without formal
political power but which still seems to be respected and to exert
influence.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Spoilers for, hmmm, at least LTW I think.
> From what I've seen, Special Circumstances seems to generally behave
> in a completely amoral way. The fact that there is no death penalty
> (or even no concept of crime and punishment) within the Culture surely
> does not preclude SC agents from deciding to kill two people in an
> utterly horrific way if that's what computes to be the best way to
> proceed.
I'm not bothered by the amorality, I'm bothered by the calculation. I'm
bothered by the fact that the Culture - or better, I think, Banks - in
this instance acted out of moral outrage and _not_ rational calculation.
Consider: the Chelgrian are a proud race, that place a very high value
on "honor". Chances are, the killings would stir them into a murderous
rage, not cow them.
It's a bit like thinking: we're going to rain bombs on their bridges,
tvs and factories, then they _will_ understand they have to behave,
right? Right. The news is even now telling us how well the lesson was
learned.
You can rain bombs of them, if it comes to that. Sometimes you have to.
But you have to make sure that you crush them utterly - and maybe shower
them with money afterwards. This worked with Germany, after all.
A logn time ago an Italian member of the Enlightenment (gosh this is the
second time I have to spell it today and I'm sure I bungled it), Cesare
Beccaria, pointed out that deterrence is not provided by the severity of
the punishment but by its certainty. Modern statistic seems to agree
with him. The Culture stands a better chance to impart its lessons
kidnapping offenders and having them live in a far away place in perfect
comfort being lectured by boring drones, than by torturing to death two
random offenders.
Besides, this is not discipline, this is politics. SC is, doing that,
giving a political message - and I don't think this is SC's mandate.
> I think that all this shows is that when very important decisions are
> made, they tend to be made by AIs and done according to pure logic.
> They therefore may seem out of character to humans who will normally
> make similar decisions based at least partly on emotional or
> sentimental reasoning.
I really think - and I say this after having thought long and hard about
it and having read a lot of Kant - that you can't take moral decision
based on "pure logic". You have to start from some basic assumption that
are a-logic. And the Culture Minds are deliberately not created
"perfect" - otherwise they will sublime, which looks like a good touch
and completely obvious to me.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Sorry about not trimming the end of last post, I wanted to add something
and just forgot.
Spoiler for Excession and LTW:
> > Another comment made, I think about the Culture's increasing
> > decadence, was regret at the re-invention of "money" due to demand
> > outstrippping supply for Ziller's concert. Well, I'm re-reading
> > Excession and there's a comment about the sex troupe Genar-Hofoen
> > books on Tier as being "expensive" - which says something about there
> > still being some means of exchange in the Culture and the fact that
> > you can apparently hire people for sexual please. So it's not all
> > rosy in the Culture - maybe we've just got used to the clinical core
> > Culture of ships' minds and forgotten there's considerable diversity
> > in the Culture.
Genar-Hofoen hires the sex troupe on Tier, which is not part of the
Culture.
Phil Clark
(Anna Feruglio Dal Dan) wrote:
>Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Spoilers for, hmmm, at least LTW I think.
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>> From what I've seen, Special Circumstances seems to generally behave
>> in a completely amoral way. The fact that there is no death penalty
>> (or even no concept of crime and punishment) within the Culture surely
>> does not preclude SC agents from deciding to kill two people in an
>> utterly horrific way if that's what computes to be the best way to
>> proceed.
>
>I'm not bothered by the amorality, I'm bothered by the calculation. I'm
>bothered by the fact that the Culture - or better, I think, Banks - in
>this instance acted out of moral outrage and _not_ rational calculation.
>
>Consider: the Chelgrian are a proud race, that place a very high value
>on "honor". Chances are, the killings would stir them into a murderous
>rage, not cow them.
Or, alternatively, we know that Chelgrian society places a value on
revenge. Maybe if the Culture hadn't undertaken a similarly high
profile revenge act, the Chelgrians would have read it as weakness and
continued its attacks.
>It's a bit like thinking: we're going to rain bombs on their bridges,
>tvs and factories, then they _will_ understand they have to behave,
>right? Right. The news is even now telling us how well the lesson was
>learned.
>
>You can rain bombs of them, if it comes to that. Sometimes you have to.
>But you have to make sure that you crush them utterly - and maybe shower
>them with money afterwards. This worked with Germany, after all.
This, unfortunately, doesn't show that violence doesn't work... it
show that the right kind of violence in the right circumstances is
needed.
>A long time ago an Italian member of the Enlightenment (gosh this is the
>second time I have to spell it today and I'm sure I bungled it), Cesare
>Beccaria, pointed out that deterrence is not provided by the severity of
>the punishment but by its certainty. Modern statistic seems to agree
>with him. The Culture stands a better chance to impart its lessons
>kidnapping offenders and having them live in a far away place in perfect
>comfort being lectured by boring drones, than by torturing to death two
>random offenders.
I'd have thought the severity of punishment had some effect - to a
professional burglar, the risk of a short prison term might be worth
running, whereas a longer one might not be. But I suppose only where
crimes are committed in a calculated manner.
>Besides, this is not discipline, this is politics. SC is, doing that,
>giving a political message - and I don't think this is SC's mandate.
Given that the Culture has no formal political decsion-making
structure, I would have said that all ad-hoc decision making bodies
(such as the Interesting Times Gang, or even - less ad hoc - SC) would
sometimes need to make decisions for a political reason. We are never
told how SC is structured, who guides it, and who gives it its
instructions.
>> Another comment made, I think about the Culture's increasing
>> decadence, was regret at the re-invention of "money" due to demand
>> outstrippping supply for Ziller's concert. Well, I'm re-reading
>> Excession and there's a comment about the sex troupe Genar-Hofoen
>> books on Tier as being "expensive" - which says something about there
>> still being some means of exchange in the Culture and the fact that
>> you can apparently hire people for sexual please. So it's not all
>> rosy in the Culture - maybe we've just got used to the clinical core
>> Culture of ships' minds and forgotten there's considerable diversity
>> in the Culture.
>Genar-Hofoen hires the sex troupe on Tier, which is not part of the
>Culture.
I have to admit, I did wonder about Tier's status. We know it was
built by a now-Sublimed Elder civilisation, but I'm not sure if it's
ever made clear whether it's part of some other Involved civilisation,
or effectively independent. But you're probably right.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 14:09:01 GMT, ada...@libero.attentioncutmeout.it
> (Anna Feruglio Dal Dan) wrote:
>
> >Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Spoilers for, hmmm, at least LTW I think.
> >
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> Or, alternatively, we know that Chelgrian society places a value on
> revenge. Maybe if the Culture hadn't undertaken a similarly high
> profile revenge act, the Chelgrians would have read it as weakness and
> continued its attacks.
The Chelgrians know the risks of attacking the Culture. But they do it
anyway, because they are thinking of afterlife. In other words, you
either target the Chelgrian-Puel or you can't get a handle on the
Chelgrian; paradise is going to be more important than anything you can
do to them.
> >You can rain bombs of them, if it comes to that. Sometimes you have to.
> >But you have to make sure that you crush them utterly - and maybe shower
> >them with money afterwards. This worked with Germany, after all.
>
> This, unfortunately, doesn't show that violence doesn't work... it
> show that the right kind of violence in the right circumstances is
> needed.
I'd have had no quarrel with the wiping out of the Chelgrian-Puel. It
would be logic.
> I'd have thought the severity of punishment had some effect - to a
> professional burglar, the risk of a short prison term might be worth
> running, whereas a longer one might not be. But I suppose only where
> crimes are committed in a calculated manner.
The _risk_ of a short prison term looks very different when it's the
_certainty_ of a short prison term. :-)
Richard Puchalsky
news:rrnrss0h1bbl1brh8...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:24:33 GMT, "Richard Puchalsky"
> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >> >Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
>
> I've introduced a couple, for The Wasp Factory, and Excession...
>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
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> >> >
> >> >Frankly, there's not much to discuss with LTW, in comparison with
Banks'
> >> >better books. We've been over the reason for the behemothaurs, the
secret
> >> >plot of the allies, the general decadence of the Culture as newly
depicted
> >> >in this book, the bad guy stereotyping, and the IMO miserably stupid
> >ending.
>
> I've lost most of the "bad guy stereotyping" arguments as I
> inadvertently managed to unsubscribe from a.b.i-b and lost the old
> threads. But I remember thinking that the reasoning "Banks has set up
> this person to be 'evil' and therefore it's good for them to be
> killed" is only one interpretation. The other is just that "shit
> happens". Someone does things that we normally consider to be bad,
> and later on they get killed. Why argue cause and effect?
Because the stereotyping is particularly ludicrous. The bad guys in this
book don't just have a caste society, they physically mutilate their lower
castes. And they don't just mutilate them, they get drunk and kill loyal
servants. These things aren't necessary to the plot or theme; the only
reason they are there is to make sure we know that the bad guys are bad.
Actually, so I don't repeat every word I've ever said on this subject and
bore people to tears who've read it already, I'll encourage people who have
just finished LTW to read the old threads on Dejanews (www.deja.com). That
way you'll get all of them.
> From what I've seen, Special Circumstances seems to generally behave
> in a completely amoral way. The fact that there is no death penalty
> (or even no concept of crime and punishment) within the Culture surely
> does not preclude SC agents from deciding to kill two people in an
> utterly horrific way if that's what computes to be the best way to
> proceed.
Banks apparantly feels that a couple of terror killings would be effective
in this situation, and that is why he writes SC thinking the same. I don't.
Remember that the Culture as a whole is not amoral. Read the justification
for war at the end of Consider Phlebas and you'll see that the Idirans were
never a threat to the Culture; the Culture went to war with them purely for
moral reasons. And when SC disappears people, as we're told in UoW, they
normally just imprison them for life.
> And, in addition, throughout Banks' works, from TWF onwards, surely
> gratuitous and grotesque killings are commonplace. What makes the two
> killings at the end of LTW worse than the "bang the bell" and the
> "cousin & the kite" killings in TWF?
What makes them worse is that the killings at the end of LTW were done as a
governmental act, and the killings in TWF were done by a sociopathic and
criminal individual. Whats more, the author carefully wrote the scene to
try to convince us that the killings in LTW were justified.
> Another comment made, I think about the Culture's increasing
> decadence, was regret at the re-invention of "money" due to demand
> outstrippping supply for Ziller's concert. Well, I'm re-reading
> Excession and there's a comment about the sex troupe Genar-Hofoen
> books on Tier as being "expensive"
Tier isn't part of the Culture. In addition to being told that in the text,
there is the fact that Tier doesn't really permit drones, which a Culture
entity would never do.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
I think this is not to justify the two killings at the end, but to
justify the disastrous Culture intervention. It's up to the reader to
decide if this justifies five billion deaths in the attempt to change
the Chelgrians. Surely the reason for the two killings is the attempt
to destroy Masaq' Hub, and Banks isn't trying to make out they deserve
to die horribly because they have a bad attitude that is shared by
probably large numbers of high caste Chelgrians. There's plenty in
other books to show that the Idirans are bad, or the Affront are bad -
and the Affront certainly aren't treated as "bad guys" in Excession.
Most of Banks's SF books are written about conflict, with the Culture
as the "home side" and therefore the bad guys are by definition on the
other side. Maybe what would be interesting would be if Banks wrote a
book from the side of a Contacted civilisation.
>Actually, so I don't repeat every word I've ever said on this subject and
>bore people to tears who've read it already, I'll encourage people who have
>just finished LTW to read the old threads on Dejanews (www.deja.com). That
>way you'll get all of them.
I read them, unfortunately by the time I'd read LTW the thread was
effectively dead, and I suspect the same will hold true for some
others as well.
>> From what I've seen, Special Circumstances seems to generally behave
>> in a completely amoral way. The fact that there is no death penalty
>> (or even no concept of crime and punishment) within the Culture surely
>> does not preclude SC agents from deciding to kill two people in an
>> utterly horrific way if that's what computes to be the best way to
>> proceed.
>
>Banks apparantly feels that a couple of terror killings would be effective
>in this situation, and that is why he writes SC thinking the same. I don't.
Banks wrote the book, and created the Chelgrians. Surely if anyone
know what would be effective in this situation it's him and not you
;-)
>Remember that the Culture as a whole is not amoral. Read the justification
>for war at the end of Consider Phlebas and you'll see that the Idirans were
>never a threat to the Culture; the Culture went to war with them purely for
>moral reasons. And when SC disappears people, as we're told in UoW, they
>normally just imprison them for life.
I think that's a simplistic reading. "Indirectly, but definitely and
mortally, the Culture *was* threatened..." in effect, it felt
intellectually challenged by the Idirans. It may have gone to war
partly to justify the work of Contact, but we have seen (certainly in
LTW, and arguably in Weapons) that the work of Contact, and SC in
particular, is certainly not a moral absolute and it can be argued is
downright damaging.
In any case, once it has been decided to mount some sort of action -
an SC intervention, or a war, I'd argue the Culture is still pretty
amoral in carrying it out. I believe that the end justifies the means
- but not to the same extent that Culture Minds seem to.
>> And, in addition, throughout Banks' works, from TWF onwards, surely
>> gratuitous and grotesque killings are commonplace. What makes the two
>> killings at the end of LTW worse than the "bang the bell" and the
>> "cousin & the kite" killings in TWF?
>
>What makes them worse is that the killings at the end of LTW were done as a
>governmental act, and the killings in TWF were done by a sociopathic and
>criminal individual. What's more, the author carefully wrote the scene to
>try to convince us that the killings in LTW were justified.
What Government? The Culture doesn't have one. It's probable that
they were carried out by a group of Minds directing this particular
operation. They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
persuade the Chelgrians not to continue to try to avenge the war dead.
Justifications can be based round this (not to say that I think it's
right - I tend to not to form moral views about what happens in books
anyway). In TWF surely the murders are just to satisfy the
protagonist's sick sense of humour - surely this isn't capable of
justification?
You seem to have a moral absolute which says that killing is wrong if
carried out by the State, which I can understand from the death
penalty point of view, but I'd put this one into the "act of war"
category and therefore capable of justification.
Maybe we need to look at this at a deeper level. Maybe Banks set up
the Chelgrians to be, in human terms, bastards, and these two in
particular - they're guilty of attempting to murder a Mind and up to
five billion people, after all - and then put this scene in to invite
people to say "that's sick. That can't be justified, whatever they
did." And in any case, why do we always assume that Banks agrees with
*everything* the Culture does?
>> Another comment made, I think about the Culture's increasing
>> decadence, was regret at the re-invention of "money" due to demand
>> outstrippping supply for Ziller's concert. Well, I'm re-reading
>> Excession and there's a comment about the sex troupe Genar-Hofoen
>> books on Tier as being "expensive"
>
>Tier isn't part of the Culture. In addition to being told that in the text,
>there is the fact that Tier doesn't really permit drones, which a Culture
>entity would never do.
I don't recall being told that in the text, maybe I haven't got to
that bit yet. We are told in Excession that some older Culture
habitats can be a little out of the ordinary. Or in this case, a lot.
But as I said to Anna, you're probably right.
I still think it's interesting that Genar-Hofoen thinks of the sex
troupe being "expensive", surely it would be free to him as the
Culture would freely provide him with unlimited amounts of the
appropriate means of exchange. Maybe I'm reading too much into one
word. But in any case, some things must be in limited supply - such
as live seats at Ziller's concert - and it's therefore not surprising
that a means to ration such commodities is invented, if on an ad hoc
basis.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Maybe we need to look at this at a deeper level. Maybe Banks set up
> the Chelgrians to be, in human terms, bastards, and these two in
> particular - they're guilty of attempting to murder a Mind and up to
> five billion people, after all - and then put this scene in to invite
> people to say "that's sick. That can't be justified, whatever they
> did." And in any case, why do we always assume that Banks agrees with
> *everything* the Culture does?
I like this interpretation, but I haven't seen much textual support for
it. I actually wish this was what Banks had in mind, I certainly think
this is what he would mean if he was asked about it (which he actually
did, come to think of it), but I just think he didn't think very much
about this whole issue. When he _wants_ reader to be appalled, he can do
it very well, as he did in TWF. This time around, he just wasn't paying
attention IMHO.
> I don't recall being told that in the text, maybe I haven't got to
> that bit yet. We are told in Excession that some older Culture
> habitats can be a little out of the ordinary. Or in this case, a lot.
> But as I said to Anna, you're probably right.
Take it from me: I read the damn thing five times when I translated it.
One before, one during, three afterwards to check up on style and
mistakes. Tier isn't Culture. See p. 189, frex.
>
> I still think it's interesting that Genar-Hofoen thinks of the sex
> troupe being "expensive", surely it would be free to him as the
> Culture would freely provide him with unlimited amounts of the
> appropriate means of exchange. Maybe I'm reading too much into one
> word. But in any case, some things must be in limited supply - such
> as live seats at Ziller's concert - and it's therefore not surprising
> that a means to ration such commodities is invented, if on an ad hoc
> basis.
Genar-Hofoen is a Bad Guy. I think many people don't see that, but
Genar-Hofoen is, as Andy puts it in Complicity "A very charming but
actually quite an evil man." Genar-Hofoen doesn't give a damn about the
Culture ethos, and has absorbed, quite deliberately, a lot of the
mentality of the Affront.
James DiBenedetto
Phil Clark wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Sep 2000 00:47:29 GMT, "Richard Puchalsky"
> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:rrnrss0h1bbl1brh8...@4ax.com...
> >> On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:24:33 GMT, "Richard Puchalsky"
> >> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> >Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
> >>
> >> I've introduced a couple, for The Wasp Factory, and Excession...
> >>
> >
>
> >> Another comment made, I think about the Culture's increasing
> >> decadence, was regret at the re-invention of "money" due to demand
> >> outstrippping supply for Ziller's concert. Well, I'm re-reading
> >> Excession and there's a comment about the sex troupe Genar-Hofoen
> >> books on Tier as being "expensive"
> >
> >Tier isn't part of the Culture. In addition to being told that in the text,
> >there is the fact that Tier doesn't really permit drones, which a Culture
> >entity would never do.
>
> I don't recall being told that in the text, maybe I haven't got to
> that bit yet. We are told in Excession that some older Culture
> habitats can be a little out of the ordinary. Or in this case, a lot.
> But as I said to Anna, you're probably right.
>
> I still think it's interesting that Genar-Hofoen thinks of the sex
> troupe being "expensive", surely it would be free to him as the
> Culture would freely provide him with unlimited amounts of the
> appropriate means of exchange. Maybe I'm reading too much into one
> word. But in any case, some things must be in limited supply - such
> as live seats at Ziller's concert - and it's therefore not surprising
> that a means to ration such commodities is invented, if on an ad hoc
> basis.
There are other mentions about the cost of things in Excession. At the Affront
banquet early on, Genar-Hofoen is well aware of the value of the bet he makes
with Fivetide, and so is his suit. Later on, his suit (I think; or maybe it's
his module) complains about the cost of renting the Affront battlecruisers to
take Hofoen to Tier.
The Culture is well aware of the importance of money, even if - for the most part
- they're post-scarcity and have no need of it themselves.
Except, of course, when you have a unique commodity, like seats at Ziller's
concert in LtW, that's also very limited. They obviously still haven't figured
out a way to entirely abolish the law of supply and demand.
Phil Clark
(Anna Feruglio Dal Dan) wrote:
>Take it from me: I read the damn thing five times when I translated it.
>One before, one during, three afterwards to check up on style and
>mistakes. Tier isn't Culture. See p. 189, frex.
Yes, you're right, this does imply it isn't in the culture.
Christian Husvik
Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:pBNy5.82$s76....@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> RTR <remskirt@if_yer_a_spammer_no_one_is_home.com> wrote:
> [...]
> Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
>
>
>
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>
> [...], the general decadence of the Culture as newly depicted
> in this book, [...].
Regarding the decadence described in LTW:
Are you sure this is describing an increased decadence in the _Culture_?
The earlier books were mostly about life in Contact or even Special
Circumstances. It is only natural that life on an orbital, where most of
the plot in LTW takes place, would seem slightly more "decadent", don't you
think?
Christian 8-)
Richard Puchalsky
_The Player of Games_ is set on an Orbital, at the beginning and end of the
book. Gurgeh's friends and acquaintances are normal people, not refugees
from a Mountain Dew commercial.
Richard Puchalsky
> There are other mentions about the cost of things in Excession. At the
Affront
> banquet early on, Genar-Hofoen is well aware of the value of the bet he
makes
> with Fivetide, and so is his suit. Later on, his suit (I think; or maybe
it's
> his module) complains about the cost of renting the Affront battlecruisers
to
> take Hofoen to Tier.
They have to be aware of standards of value in Affront society; they are
Contact people. If Genar-Hofoen didn't know the value of his bet he'd be a
very bad diplomat. (Maybe he is anyway -- but not for that reason.)
>
> The Culture is well aware of the importance of money, even if - for the
most part
> - they're post-scarcity and have no need of it themselves.
>
> Except, of course, when you have a unique commodity, like seats at
Ziller's
> concert in LtW, that's also very limited. They obviously still haven't
figured
> out a way to entirely abolish the law of supply and demand.
In this case, yes they have. It was clearly explained in the text that
people who wanted to could have had a real-time simulation of the whole
thing that was undistinguishable from reality -- it would have been exactly
like being there. Their willingness to reinvent money just to be able to
say that they were really there is decadent.
Richard Puchalsky
> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >> >> >Spoilers
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >Because the stereotyping is particularly ludicrous. The bad guys in this
> >book don't just have a caste society, they physically mutilate their
lower
> >castes. And they don't just mutilate them, they get drunk and kill loyal
> >servants. These things aren't necessary to the plot or theme; the only
> >reason they are there is to make sure we know that the bad guys are bad.
>
> I think this is not to justify the two killings at the end, but to
> justify the disastrous Culture intervention. It's up to the reader to
> decide if this justifies five billion deaths in the attempt to change
> the Chelgrians.
Thus the moral cheapness of much of the book. If the society was like
India, the Culture still could have intervened. Then the reader would have
a real moral choice about whether the attempted intervention ws justified or
not.
> Surely the reason for the two killings is the attempt
> to destroy Masaq' Hub, and Banks isn't trying to make out they deserve
> to die horribly because they have a bad attitude that is shared by
> probably large numbers of high caste Chelgrians.
I had a discussion with Louis Armstrong about this before. Look, you can't
evaluate a work of fiction by its own internal logic; fiction is not
history. If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author put
it there. Banks made sure that we knew that they were, personally, bad guys
before writing one of his vengeance killing scenes. The reason for the
scene isn't because of "the attempt to destroy Masaq' Hub", it's because
Banks chose to tell that story.
> What Government? The Culture doesn't have one. It's probable that
> they were carried out by a group of Minds directing this particular
> operation.
The Culture effectively does have groups of Minds who decide policy.
Externally, they are no different from a government as far as foreign
peoples are concerned.
> They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
> the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
> savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
> persuade the Chelgrians not to continue to try to avenge the war dead.
Yes. As I said, it was IMO a miserably stupid ending.
therother
<ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > >> >> >Spoilers
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> >
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> > >> >> >
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> > >Because the stereotyping is particularly ludicrous. The bad guys in
this
> > >book don't just have a caste society, they physically mutilate their
> > >lower castes. And they don't just mutilate them, they get drunk and
kill
> > >loyal servants. These things aren't necessary to the plot or theme;
the only
> > >reason they are there is to make sure we know that the bad guys are
bad.
> >
> > I think this is not to justify the two killings at the end, but to
> > justify the disastrous Culture intervention. It's up to the reader to
> > decide if this justifies five billion deaths in the attempt to change
>
> Thus the moral cheapness of much of the book. If the society was like
> India, the Culture still could have intervened. Then the reader would
have
or
> not.
It all depends on your views on morals and ethics.
Remember, the Culture minds don't think like us. They don't think in
moralistic terms. They have no moral code as such. They might have agreed
codes of conduct, but I would imagine these are largely informal. To them,
human life is about numbers. The books have repeated told us that
statistics is what drives the Minds interventions in a society. If they
calculate that an intervention will save lives and halt suffering for a
significant number of people, they will intervene.
Look back to CP and what Horza says about the Culture. Take away the
propaganda to look at the core of what he says. He's right on every count.
The Minds are godless, soulless, and to him, amoral machines. Whether this
is a good or a bad thing, again depends on your own personal morals.
You mentioned earlier that the Culture, not the Idirans, went to war for
moral reasons and felt compelled to do so. One could easily argue the same
about Horza.
> > Surely the reason for the two killings is the attempt
> > to destroy Masaq' Hub, and Banks isn't trying to make out they deserve
> > to die horribly because they have a bad attitude that is shared by
> > probably large numbers of high caste Chagrins.
>
> I had a discussion with Louis Armstrong about this before. Look, you
can't
> evaluate a work of fiction by its own internal logic; fiction is not
> history. If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author
put
> it there. Banks made sure that we knew that they were, personally, bad
guys
> before writing one of his vengeance killing scenes. The reason for the
> scene isn't because of "the attempt to destroy Masaq' Hub", it's because
> Banks chose to tell that story.
Have you considered that they had to be bad guys to justify the intervention
in the first place? If the Chel were a reasonable species and had a few
nasty qualities, then why would the Culture deem such a large scale and
drastic intervention necessary? Banks has to set them up of nasty to do
this. You might call it a plot device and you would more than likely be
right.
In the novel that I just read, "The Dumas Club", by Arturo Perez-Reverte,
one of the characters says -
"In essence, games are the only universally serious activity. They leave no
room for scepticism, wouldn't you agree? However incredulous or doubting
one might be, if one wants to play one has no choice but to follow the
rules. Only the person that respects the rules, or at least knows and
applies them, can win ... Reading a book is the same: one has to accept the
plot and the characters to enjoy the story."
I could not have said it any better in a thousand years. You obviously did
not, so you could not enjoy the story. It's a shame, as the book is really
quite good, IMHO.
> > What Government? The Culture doesn't have one. It's probable that
> > they were carried out by a group of Minds directing this particular
> > operation.
>
> The Culture effectively does have groups of Minds who decide policy.
> Externally, they are no different from a government as far as foreign
> peoples are concerned.
>
> > They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
> > the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
> > savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
> > persuade the Chagrins not to continue to try to avenge the war dead.
>
> Yes. As I said, it was IMO a miserably stupid ending.
There are other interpretations of the ending of the book. The one that I
prefer makes perfect sense to me and is not in the least stupid or ill
thought out. Therefore I think that the ending is apt and reflects
perfectly on what we know of SC. I'm willing to give Banks the benefit of
the doubt this time.
therother
P.S. If anyone has seen the film "The Ninth Gate", which is loosely based on
"The Dumas Club", the book is significantly better IMHO, and is well worth a
read, especially if you are a fan of Alexandre Dumas (senior).
therother
> Christian Husvik <chu...@online.no> wrote:
> > Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > RTR <remskirt@if_yer_a_spammer_no_one_is_home.com> wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [...], the general decadence of the Culture as newly depicted
> > > in this book, [...].
> >
> > Regarding the decadence described in LTW:
> >
> > Are you sure this is describing an increased decadence in the _Culture_?
> > The earlier books were mostly about life in Contact or even Special
> > Circumstances. It is only natural that life on an orbital, where most
of
> > the plot in LTW takes place, would seem slightly more "decadent", don't
> you
> > think?
>
> _The Player of Games_ is set on an Orbital, at the beginning and end of
the
> book. Gurgeh's friends and acquaintances are normal people, not refugees
> from a Mountain Dew commercial.
>
>
Gurgeh's friends are all game-players. The only "normal" people fawn over
Gurgeh, asking him for games, treating him like royalty or a celebrity.
At one of the readings, Banks said that the humans in LTW were there as
light relief. You seem to be forgetting that the humans of the Culture,
although they are capable of being more intelligent than us, are generally
spoilt and pampered. They have no need to be witty, or insightful or deep
or serious. No need whatsoever. It won't get them popularity, or fame, or
intellectual recognition.
therother
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [...], the general decadence of the Culture as newly depicted
> > > > in this book, [...].
> > >
> > > Regarding the decadence described in LTW:
> > >
> > > Are you sure this is describing an increased decadence in the
_Culture_?
> > > The earlier books were mostly about life in Contact or even Special
> > > Circumstances. It is only natural that life on an orbital, where most
> of
> > > the plot in LTW takes place, would seem slightly more "decadent",
don't
> > you
> > > think?
> >
> > _The Player of Games_ is set on an Orbital, at the beginning and end of
the
> > book. Gurgeh's friends and acquaintances are normal people, not
refugees
> > from a Mountain Dew commercial.
> >
> >
>
> Gurgeh's friends are all game-players. The only "normal" people fawn over
> Gurgeh, asking him for games, treating him like royalty or a celebrity.
Gurgeh's friends are not all game-players. All I can say is read PoG again.
>
> At one of the readings, Banks said that the humans in LTW were there as
> light relief. You seem to be forgetting that the humans of the Culture,
> although they are capable of being more intelligent than us, are generally
> spoilt and pampered.
i.e., decadent.
> They have no need to be witty, or insightful or deep
> or serious. No need whatsoever. It won't get them popularity, or fame,
or
> intellectual recognition.
That is contradicted by your own sentence one paragraph above. "The only
'normal' people fawn over Gurgeh, treated him like royalty or a celebrity."
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > >> >> >
> > > >> >> >
> > > >> >> >
> > > >> >> >
> > > >> >> >
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> > > >> >> >
> > > >> >> >
> > > >> >> >
> > > >> >> >
> > Thus the moral cheapness of much of the book. If the society was like
> > India, the Culture still could have intervened. Then the reader would
have
> > a real moral choice about whether the attempted intervention was
justified or
> > not.
[...]
> >If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author put
> > it there. Banks made sure that we knew that they were, personally, bad
guys
> > before writing one of his vengeance killing scenes. The reason for the
> > scene isn't because of "the attempt to destroy Masaq' Hub", it's because
> > Banks chose to tell that story.
>
> Have you considered that they had to be bad guys to justify the
intervention
> in the first place?
Yes, see above. Remember that to the Culture, our society is run by bad
guys and would justify intervention, and the only reason they didin't do it
in The State of the Art was to use us as a control. Certainly an Involved
with an India-style caste system would attract Culture agents.
> If the Chel were a reasonable species and had a few
> nasty qualities, then why would the Culture deem such a large scale and
> drastic intervention necessary?
Large scale and drastic? They got some politicians into power who changed
the laws. But it's not like the Culture killed 5 billion in war; if their
plans had worked, no one would have died.
> In the novel that I just read, "The Dumas Club", by Arturo Perez-Reverte,
> one of the characters says -
>
> "In essence, games are the only universally serious activity. They leave
no
> room for scepticism, wouldn't you agree? However incredulous or doubting
> one might be, if one wants to play one has no choice but to follow the
> rules. Only the person that respects the rules, or at least knows and
> applies them, can win ... Reading a book is the same: one has to accept
the
> plot and the characters to enjoy the story."
And if the author produces an implausible plot and cardboard characters, it
will be impossible to enjoy the story. More to the point, if the author
produces a story that advocates a particular worldview, the story becomes to
some degree inseperable from that worldview. To take an extreme example,
"Birth of a Nation" (the film that heroized the Ku Klux Klan) is, in a
technical sense, a good film; do you really think that people should just
accept the plot and the characters and enjoy the story?
> > > They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
> > > the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
> > > savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
> > > persuade the Chagrins not to continue to try to avenge the war dead.
> >
> > Yes. As I said, it was IMO a miserably stupid ending.
>
> There are other interpretations of the ending of the book. The one that I
> prefer makes perfect sense to me and is not in the least stupid or ill
> thought out.
I agree that your paragraph above beginning "They were carried out as an act
of war ..." is an accurate description of the end of the book. I stand by
my own opinion of that ending. I've already had to read enough people here
quote "you don't fuck with the Culture" appreciatively -- why not just watch
"Die Hard IV" or something?
therother
Not really. Gurgeh is not a normal person. He is extraordinary, with a
gift for playing games. The vast majority of the people of the Culture
would never be even close to his skill if they devoted their entire lives to
games
My statement was a generalisation, and as you know, there are always
exceptions to any generalisation. Before, Banks had only written about
extraordinary people (in one way or another) of the Culture. This is the
first real glimpse of the Joe Bloggs member of the Culture.
therother
> therother <ther...@clara.co.uk> wrote:
> > Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > > >> >> >Spoilers
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
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> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> > > > >> >> >
> intervention
> > in the first place?
>
> Yes, see above. Remember that to the Culture, our society is run by bad
> guys and would justify intervention, and the only reason they didin't do
it
> in The State of the Art was to use us as a control. Certainly an
Involved
> with an India-style caste system would attract Culture agents.
Perhaps. But the Caste system in India in not nearly as bad as it used to
be. Maybe some are already there? ;=)
Sometimes they deem that intervention is appropriate, sometime they think
that it'll all work out in the end. It's all in the numbers. That's what
we've been told.
> > If the Chel were a reasonable species and had a few
> > nasty qualities, then why would the Culture deem such a large scale and
> > drastic intervention necessary?
>
> Large scale and drastic? They got some politicians into power who changed
> the laws. But it's not like the Culture killed 5 billion in war; if their
> plans had worked, no one would have died.
How do you know that the Caste War wasn't the plan in the first place? Or
do you think that a legion of immensely intelligent Minds with thousands of
years of experience in dealing with these situations just forgot that the
Chel were an aggressive, volatile species?
> > In the novel that I just read, "The Dumas Club", by Arturo
Perez-Reverte,
> > one of the characters says -
> >
> > "In essence, games are the only universally serious activity. They
leave
> no
> > room for scepticism, wouldn't you agree? However incredulous or
doubting
> > one might be, if one wants to play one has no choice but to follow the
> > rules. Only the person that respects the rules, or at least knows and
> > applies them, can win ... Reading a book is the same: one has to accept
> the
> > plot and the characters to enjoy the story."
>
> And if the author produces an implausible plot and cardboard characters,
it
> will be impossible to enjoy the story. More to the point, if the author
> produces a story that advocates a particular worldview, the story becomes
to
> some degree inseperable from that worldview. To take an extreme example,
> "Birth of a Nation" (the film that heroized the Ku Klux Klan) is, in a
> technical sense, a good film; do you really think that people should just
> accept the plot and the characters and enjoy the story?
Some of the Nazi propaganda films contain brilliant filmmaking, technically
speaking.
Do you respect the rules portrayed by these films?. If yes, then you
respect the rules of the KKK and the Nazis, so you will probably enjoy it.
If no, then you will not enjoy it. I suspect that you, like I, wouldn't
respect the rules of these films, so hence we wouldn't enjoy them.
So where's your problem? I didn't say that you had to respect those the
rules (or the plot and characters) only that if you wanted to enjoy a book,
a film, or any piece of art for that matter, you have to respect the rules
of the piece.
But if you don't want to play, you don't want to play.
> > > > They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
> > > > the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
> > > > savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
> > > > persuade the Chagrins not to continue to try to avenge the war dead.
> > >
> > > Yes. As I said, it was IMO a miserably stupid ending.
> >
> > There are other interpretations of the ending of the book. The one that
I
> > prefer makes perfect sense to me and is not in the least stupid or ill
> > thought out.
>
> I agree that your paragraph above beginning "They were carried out as an
act
> of war ..." is an accurate description of the end of the book. I stand by
> my own opinion of that ending. I've already had to read enough people
here
> quote "you don't fuck with the Culture" appreciatively -- why not just
watch
> "Die Hard IV" or something?
>
That's not my paragraph. It was just a quote from a previous poster that
got stuck in there.
The Culture is only fiction. Banks has always tried to separate what he is
creating with the world at large. That is perhaps one of the main reasons
why he didn't use us as the originators of the Culture.
As Banks says, the Culture only exists in the his mind and in those who have
read the books. I think that the ending is self consistent with what Banks
has told us about SC. I didn't say that I approved of the ending in any
way. And I don't appreciate the suggestion that I would (see below).
Perhaps you gathered from my previous post that, while that the living
conditions within the Culture Utopian, I believe that the Culture is very
far from the ideal civilisation. And Banks has deliberately made it so.
IMHO, the most independent and balanced view of the Culture so far presented
has to be that of Tsoldrin Beychae. He has some very grave doubts about the
Minds of the Culture and their methods.
I also would not under any circumstances suggest that Banks would approve of
the course of action taken by SC. He could quite justifiably view that as
defamation of his character. In fact, I am almost certain given the few
times I have had the chance to meet him, that he would be very much against
it.
therother
P.S. I didn't even know there was a Die Hard IV :=)
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > > > >> >> >Spoilers
> > > > > >> >> >
> > > > > >> >> >
> > > > > >> >> >
> > > > > >> >> >
> > > > > >> >> >
> > > > > >> >> >
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> > > > > >> >> >
changed
> > the laws. But it's not like the Culture killed 5 billion in war; if
their
> > plans had worked, no one would have died.
>
> How do you know that the Caste War wasn't the plan in the first place? Or
> do you think that a legion of immensely intelligent Minds with thousands
of
> years of experience in dealing with these situations just forgot that the
> Chel were an aggressive, volatile species?
I don't think that the Caste War was planned; why would it be? It didn't
destroy the Chel, it undoubtedly worsened their caste conflicts, it
embarassed the Culture, and it resulted in gigadeaths. It doesn't fit any
apparent overt Culture motive or hidden SC motive. Clearly the Minds can
occasionally fail.
[lots deleted]
> So where's your problem? I didn't say that you had to respect those the
> rules (or the plot and characters) only that if you wanted to enjoy a
book,
> a film, or any piece of art for that matter, you have to respect the rules
> of the piece.
>
> But if you don't want to play, you don't want to play.
Your original quote seemed a lot more prescriptive. And "not wanting to
play" has a generally negative connotation that I don't think fits failure
by the author instead of by the reader. Why should people want to play if
the game has been fixed?
> > I agree that your paragraph above beginning "They were carried out as as
act
> > of war ..." is an accurate description of the end of the book. I stand
by
> > my own opinion of that ending. I've already had to read enough people
here
> > quote "you don't fuck with the Culture" appreciatively -- why not just
watch
> > "Die Hard IV" or something?
> >
>
> That's not my paragraph. It was just a quote from a previous poster that
> got stuck in there.
Oops, sorry. Well, in any case, I think it was an accurate description of
the ending.
> As Banks says, the Culture only exists in the his mind and in those who
have
> read the books. I think that the ending is self consistent with what
Banks
> has told us about SC. I didn't say that I approved of the ending in any
> way. And I don't appreciate the suggestion that I would (see below).
Both Banks' SF and non-SF books propound a certain set of political ideas.
I don't think anyone can read more than two of Banks' works and not agree
with this. All of his sympathetic characters beleive essentially the same
thing, and all of his villains are stamped from the same mold. LTW shows
the progress of what I'd call a classic left-to-right political shift with
age, in an American author.
> I also would not under any circumstances suggest that Banks would approve
of
> the course of action taken by SC. He could quite justifiably view that as
> defamation of his character. In fact, I am almost certain given the few
> times I have had the chance to meet him, that he would be very much
against
> it.
He had a chance to comment on it, and he said that he's very much against
the death penalty. So what? Authors speak by what they write, not by what
they say. It's not a new thing for Banks to write a sadistic vengeance
scene; they are a staple of his works.
>
>
> therother
>
>
> P.S. I didn't even know there was a Die Hard IV :=)
>
Maybe there isn't. :-) But everyone seems to know what I mean when I write
it.
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > > > > Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
theother wrote:
> > > They have no need to be witty, or insightful or deep
> > > or serious. No need whatsoever. It won't get them popularity, or
fame, or
> > > intellectual recognition.
> >
> > That is contradicted by your own sentence one paragraph above. "The
only
> > 'normal' people fawn over Gurgeh, treated him like royalty or a
celebrity."
> >
>
> Not really. Gurgeh is not a normal person. He is extraordinary, with a
> gift for playing games. The vast majority of the people of the Culture
> would never be even close to his skill if they devoted their entire lives
to
> games
The vast majority would not achieve Gurgeh's celebrity status, no. But the
vast majority would be good at *something*. Way back in Consider Phlebas,
we're told that just about everyone in the Culture is both intelligent and
well educated. And, in PoG, they behave that way.
Mark Twain wrote something about the greatest human joy being the exercise
of skill. People like to be good at something. They may not be the
greatest wit in the world, but among their friends, they'll still try to be
witty, or to be attractive or interesting in some other way. Look at
Usenet -- none of us get anything by writing here, yet I'd still bet that
the great majority of people who write here try to write something
interesting and care about other people's opinions.
In LTW, we have people hanging around with Ziller, probably the biggest
celebrity on the Orbital, and he's trying to have an intelligent
conversation, and they are blithering like idiots. Their refusal to have
any self-respect is just, well, decadent, in the bad sense of that word.
Many don't even have any respect for their own lives.
>
> My statement was a generalisation, and as you know, there are always
> exceptions to any generalisation. Before, Banks had only written about
> extraordinary people (in one way or another) of the Culture. This is the
> first real glimpse of the Joe Bloggs member of the Culture.
I really think that PoG counts as a glimpse, even if you disallow the people
Zakalwe meets on the GCU in Use of Weapons, and the State of the Art crew,
as being non-representative Contact people.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Reading a book is the same: one has to accept the
> plot and the characters to enjoy the story."
>
> I could not have said it any better in a thousand years. You obviously did
> not, so you could not enjoy the story. It's a shame, as the book is really
> quite good, IMHO.
Pardon me, but this is true but useless. Some books are true and some
books betray us. Some books would require us to become other persons,
whom we despise, to adhere to their assumptions - so it is for me with
Vinge's last book.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Do you respect the rules portrayed by these films?. If yes, then you
> respect the rules of the KKK and the Nazis, so you will probably enjoy it.
> If no, then you will not enjoy it. I suspect that you, like I, wouldn't
> respect the rules of these films, so hence we wouldn't enjoy them.
This may not be totally true. If you read "Kiss of the Spider Woman" by
IIRC Miguel Ruiz (wonderful book, btw), there is the whole plot of a
film by Leni Riefensthal. One of the characters - a prisoner, jailed for
"gross indecency" - tells the film to the other, a political prisoner,
in an Argentinian jail. The film progresses a lot before the political
prisoner catches on to what kind of film it is and lets fly. A strong
argument insues. The point is that the film really has some virtues,
despite being Nazi propaganda.
A lot of people adore Celine, for another example, despite him being
what he was. I don't, but I'm sure I'll be able to find some examples of
people I really disapprove of writing good books... Er... :-)
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>James DiBenedetto <star...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
> > There are other mentions about the cost of things in Excession. At the
>> The Culture is well aware of the importance of money, even if - for the
>most part
>> - they're post-scarcity and have no need of it themselves.
>>
>> Except, of course, when you have a unique commodity, like seats at
>Ziller's
>> concert in LtW, that's also very limited. They obviously still haven't
>figured
>> out a way to entirely abolish the law of supply and demand.
>
>In this case, yes they have. It was clearly explained in the text that
>people who wanted to could have had a real-time simulation of the whole
>thing that was undistinguishable from reality -- it would have been exactly
>like being there. Their willingness to reinvent money just to be able to
>say that they were really there is decadent.
Surely, if anything, it's their refusal to substitute a 100% realistic
simulation for reality that's "decadent". The Culture only needs no
means of exchange because supply is in general either unlimited or at
least can satisfy demand with out having to ration it. As soon as a
good or service appears that has to be rationed, supply and demand
steps in. It's nothing to do with the wishes of the population (maybe
they're as embarrassed about it as Masaq' Hub seems to be), it's an
economic "law".
If people were apathetic enough to just going to accept that they
couldn't go to the concert because they hadn't drawn a ticket, I'd say
that was decadent.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> >> >> >Spoilers
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
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>> I think this is not to justify the two killings at the end, but to
>> justify the disastrous Culture intervention. It's up to the reader to
>> decide if this justifies five billion deaths in the attempt to change
>> the Chelgrians.
>
>Thus the moral cheapness of much of the book. If the society was like
>India, the Culture still could have intervened. Then the reader would have
>a real moral choice about whether the attempted intervention ws justified or
>not.
And the reader still has no moral choice? OK it's a bit harder
because the Chelgrians are described as having few redeeming features,
but you still have the choice. For what it's worth, having read all
the Culture books except TSOTA I think that Culture is not justified
in its interventions in other civilisations, at least not those that
aren't designed at lessening or removing a threat to the Culture.
Including the Chelgrian intervention. Granted, the Culture probably
didn't set out to cause the war... but the computing power of the
Minds must have known the risk that was being run.
As Banks's politics are left of centre, I imagine he is against
imperialism and colonialism and I would be interested in knowing his
views on Contact and SC interventions in other cultures. Maybe I'll
go to the next signing and ask him.
>> Surely the reason for the two killings is the attempt
>> to destroy Masaq' Hub, and Banks isn't trying to make out they deserve
>> to die horribly because they have a bad attitude that is shared by
>> probably large numbers of high caste Chelgrians.
>
>I had a discussion with Louis
Phil
>Armstrong about this before. Look, you can't
>evaluate a work of fiction by its own internal logic
Err... bollocks.
Surely an important part of the genre of SF is to create and describe
an internally consistent and plausible alternative universe. Having
created it, then things that happen must follow logically. I could
quite easily imagine a writer creating a universe based on a
particular set of premises, creating a culture and writing books with
their viewpoint within that culture, even if that culture did things
that the author disapproves of. In fact, you have more freedom to do
this in SF, as you are quite possibly writing about non-humans to whom
current human assumptions and moral codes are quite possibly not
applicable.
Even if I created a universe I liked, and was the closest thing to a
utopia I could think of, there would still be bad things happening in
it, and representatives of that culture would still do things I
disapprove of, because otherwise it would be so perfect as to be
unbelievable.
>If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author put
>it there. Banks made sure that we knew that they were, personally, bad guys
>before writing one of his vengeance killing scenes. The reason for the
>scene isn't because of "the attempt to destroy Masaq' Hub", it's because
>Banks chose to tell that story.
True. But how do you know that Banks approves of the way all his
characters act? Maybe he feels that they "follow logically" from his
basic premise. Does he therefore approve of what Frank Cunninghame
does? Do we assume that Banks either tortured small animals as a
child, or wanted to, and thinks that murdering your young relatives is
OK? Which of the two antagonists in Complicity does he approve of?
Either? Both? Or is it just a nice story he thought up?
>> What Government? The Culture doesn't have one. It's probable that
>> they were carried out by a group of Minds directing this particular
>> operation.
>
>The Culture effectively does have groups of Minds who decide policy.
>Externally, they are no different from a government as far as foreign
>peoples are concerned.
But not as far as the Culture is concerned. The anti-death-penalty
argument that the State should not kill is an internal one, not an
external one. I imagine there are some people who are against the
death penalty but believe that in certain circumstances war is
justifiable.
>> They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
>> the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
>> savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
>> persuade the Chelgrians not to continue to try to avenge the war dead.
>
>Yes. As I said, it was IMO a miserably stupid ending.
But as far as I can see we have your opinion that it was miserably
stupid, but not much more. If anything, I think the poorest bit about
the ending is the rather understated and trite way the plot lines
unravel when it's made clear Masaq' Hub knew about it all along. But
that's only a quibble.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>therother <ther...@clara.co.uk> wrote:
>> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>> > > > > >> >> >Spoilers
>> > > > > >> >> >
>> > > > > >> >> >
>> > > > > >> >> >
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>> > Large scale and drastic? They got some politicians into power who
>changed
>> > the laws. But it's not like the Culture killed 5 billion in war; if
>their
>> > plans had worked, no one would have died.
>>
>> How do you know that the Caste War wasn't the plan in the first place? Or
>> do you think that a legion of immensely intelligent Minds with thousands
>of
>> years of experience in dealing with these situations just forgot that the
>> Chel were an aggressive, volatile species?
>
>I don't think that the Caste War was planned; why would it be? It didn't
>destroy the Chel, it undoubtedly worsened their caste conflicts, it
>embarassed the Culture, and it resulted in gigadeaths. It doesn't fit any
>apparent overt Culture motive or hidden SC motive. Clearly the Minds can
>occasionally fail.
There is another interpretation, I'm sure I'm not the only person it's
occurred to...
Maybe Contact/SC sees the Chelgrians as a particular threat to the
Culture. They seem to inhabit a space close to Culture space, they
are technologically fairly advanced, although not yet up to Culture
standards, the have a hunter/prey ethos (thought Banks could have made
more of this, though) and of course the Chelgrian-Puen have Sublimed.
Maybe a civil war was needed to set them back a few hundred years...
the intervention was designed to cause a war... either it went too
well, and a Peace faction in the Culture stepped in and stopped it, or
maybe the Culture wanted the Chelgrians to know it was quite capable
of this sort of thing so they'd better watch their step.
>>> I agree that your paragraph above beginning "They were carried out as
>>> an act of war ..." is an accurate description of the end of the book. I stand
>>> by my own opinion of that ending. I've already had to read enough people
>>> here quote "you don't fuck with the Culture" appreciatively -- why not just
>>> watch "Die Hard IV" or something?
>> >
>>
>> That's not my paragraph. It was just a quote from a previous poster that
>> got stuck in there.
>
>Oops, sorry. Well, in any case, I think it was an accurate description of
>the ending.
Mine. I'm glad we seem to agree on something.
Quoting DFWTC to support an argument is not necessarily
"appreciative". People in the book (books?) use it, so they are
reporting that from their perspective the Culture sometimes does
things to say "don't fuck with me". If I quoted it (I think I may
have done) it was to show that the ending is not out of character.
>
>> As Banks says, the Culture only exists in the his mind and in those who
>have
>> read the books. I think that the ending is self consistent with what
>Banks
>> has told us about SC. I didn't say that I approved of the ending in any
>> way. And I don't appreciate the suggestion that I would (see below).
>
>Both Banks' SF and non-SF books propound a certain set of political ideas.
>I don't think anyone can read more than two of Banks' works and not agree
>with this.
Certainly there's a strong thread of this running through his more
realistic non-M works. Cameron Colley's and Prentice McHoan's
worldviews seem to be close, and possibly close to Banks's. But I'm
not sure you can easily say this about the SF books, after all Banks's
brand of Scottish socialism is a bit irrelevant in the Culture.
>All of his sympathetic characters beleive essentially the same
>thing, and all of his villains are stamped from the same mold.
Which is Frank Cunninghame? And, in Complicity, both the bad guy and
the good guy have essentially the same politics. In fact, I have
never really seen Banks's work as having proper heroes and villains -
Horza and Zakalwe, for example, are both or neither, and most of his
work I see as being ethically complex, much like real life in fact.
>LTW shows
>the progress of what I'd call a classic left-to-right political shift with
>age, in an American author.
Don't see it, myself - I think the Culture is doing much the same in
LTW as it does in CP.
>> I also would not under any circumstances suggest that Banks would approve
>of
>> the course of action taken by SC. He could quite justifiably view that as
>> defamation of his character. In fact, I am almost certain given the few
>> times I have had the chance to meet him, that he would be very much
>against
>> it.
>
>He had a chance to comment on it, and he said that he's very much against
>the death penalty. So what? Authors speak by what they write, not by what
>they say. It's not a new thing for Banks to write a sadistic vengeance
>scene; they are a staple of his works.
See my previous post.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>therother <ther...@clara.co.uk> wrote:
>> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>> > > > > > Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >
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>> > > > > >
>In LTW, we have people hanging around with Ziller, probably the biggest
>celebrity on the Orbital, and he's trying to have an intelligent
>conversation, and they are blithering like idiots. Their refusal to have
>any self-respect is just, well, decadent, in the bad sense of that word.
>Many don't even have any respect for their own lives.
>
>>
>> My statement was a generalisation, and as you know, there are always
>> exceptions to any generalisation. Before, Banks had only written about
>> extraordinary people (in one way or another) of the Culture. This is the
>> first real glimpse of the Joe Bloggs member of the Culture.
>
>I really think that PoG counts as a glimpse, even if you disallow the people
>Zakalwe meets on the GCU in Use of Weapons, and the State of the Art crew,
>as being non-representative Contact people.
IIRC There is a comment in LTW to the effect that the population of
Masaq' is a little strange... given how easy it is to travel around in
the Culture maybe all the tossers go to live there.
It does beg the question, however, of why Ziller and Kabe would want
to live there - although in Ziller's case it seems that there's a
sizeable minority at least of Masaq's citizens who are into orchestral
music, and he likes some of the daredevil sports such as neck jumping
- perhaps due to his carnivore background.
James DiBenedetto
Richard Puchalsky wrote:
> James DiBenedetto <star...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>
> > The Culture is well aware of the importance of money, even if - for the
> most part
> > - they're post-scarcity and have no need of it themselves.
> >
> > Except, of course, when you have a unique commodity, like seats at
> Ziller's
> > concert in LtW, that's also very limited. They obviously still haven't
> figured
> > out a way to entirely abolish the law of supply and demand.
>
> In this case, yes they have. It was clearly explained in the text that
> people who wanted to could have had a real-time simulation of the whole
> thing that was undistinguishable from reality -- it would have been exactly
> like being there. Their willingness to reinvent money just to be able to
> say that they were really there is decadent.
I'd agree, except that elsewhere in LtW, we get that exact question - what's the
difference between reality and an indistinguishable-from-reality simulation?
And the answer Banks gives (or at least the answer that his characters give) is
that there is a difference. Doing it in VR is, in some sense, "cheating."
Just like the discussion between Ziller and Hub about whether a Mind could
compose a symphony that could be taken for one of Ziller's - of course it could,
it could probably do it better, or at the very least faster, and any listeners
would never know. But the whole value of Ziller doing it instead of a Mind is
that it's Ziller doing it.
The real experience, we're told repeatedly in the book, is "better" than a
simulation, even if the simulation is so good that you'd never be able to tell
the difference.
If that's how the average Culture citizen (and Mind, if there is such a thing as
an average Culture Mind) views things, then you DO have a supply and demand
problem.
Richard Horton
On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 08:53:50 GMT, ada...@libero.attentioncutmeout.it
(Anna Feruglio Dal Dan) wrote:
>This may not be totally true. If you read "Kiss of the Spider Woman" by
>IIRC Miguel Ruiz
Manuel Puig.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> >This may not be totally true. If you read "Kiss of the Spider Woman" by
> >IIRC Miguel Ruiz
>
> Manuel Puig.
Right. I looked and found to my chagrin that all his books are at my
parents', so I had to resort to memory. Memory let me down. :-(
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> It seems that there's a
> sizeable minority at least of Masaq's citizens who are into orchestral
> music,
Just quoting randomly from an interview with Amos Oz I really liked:
"Where I live in now [in Israel] there are plenty of Russian immigrant.
They all seem to be musicians. They joke that if you see a Russian
immigrant without a violin, he's a pianist."
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> As Banks's politics are left of centre, I imagine he is against
> imperialism and colonialism and I would be interested in knowing his
> views on Contact and SC interventions in other cultures. Maybe I'll
> go to the next signing and ask him.
I guess he would tell you that he's against imperialism and colonialism
because they are done to profit from the people you colonise, even to
exploit them, although ostensibly there is an element of "we're going it
for their own good". The Culture would seem to profit in no way from its
intervention, and is doing it to prevent unnecessary pain and suffering
and not to impose its own morality on other cultures - though there is
an ineliminable contradiction in this. I think Banks would tell you he
is aware of the contradiction - people repeatedly argue against it,
Genar-Hofoen among others - but that he does not believe in absolute
moral relativism. Yes - there _is_ a contradiction in imposing your
moral values on somebody else at least to the extent that they consist
in believing pain and suffering to be bad. But I guees the Culture would
argue that, if a culture collectively would not welcome its
intervention, the individuals made to suffer would, and that would be
enough for them.
That's really the conflict between Andy and Camoron, isn't it? If you do
something, you're as bad as they are. But if you do nothing, you're an
accomplice. And non-violence doesn't seem to work too well. I don't
think it's possible to wiggle out of that one.
> True. But how do you know that Banks approves of the way all his
> characters act? Maybe he feels that they "follow logically" from his
> basic premise. Does he therefore approve of what Frank Cunninghame
> does? Do we assume that Banks either tortured small animals as a
> child, or wanted to, and thinks that murdering your young relatives is
> OK? Which of the two antagonists in Complicity does he approve of?
> Either? Both? Or is it just a nice story he thought up?
Exactely.
Yesterday I was explaining in another group why I don't like the
villains in A Deepness in the Sky. It took a while to me to nail it. The
fact is - I'm sorry for those of you who are on both groups and bored by
this by now - the author does not seem to be able to concieve that
somebody would not immediately recognize the good side, the good
position, the right solution, for what it is. If they don't immediately
agree with the good guys (in this case, the ones that think like the
author), then it must be because they are bad, or insane, or perverted.
But it's not like that in the real world. Sure, there are bad, perverted
and insane people around, but there are also a lot of people who are
convinced, in good faith, of their own reasons. They may be wrong but
they may also have some good points on their side. Horza is one such,
and so is Elethiomel. It's not that Banks doesn't believe that
Elethiomel is evil. He is. But it's not pure, distilled, mad bad and
dangerous evil. And he has reasons, reasonable, even justified reasons.
Richard is right in saying that Banks doesn't go too far out in giving
good reasons to the white male to murder the Invisible, and that scene
sticks out annoyingly to me because Banks is capable of much more than
that. The Chelgrians, in wanting to follow the Chelgrian-Puel in
avenging the Culture, have some very good reasons. They would _really_
forfeit paradise for billions of innocent people.
> But not as far as the Culture is concerned. The anti-death-penalty
> argument that the State should not kill is an internal one, not an
> external one. I imagine there are some people who are against the
> death penalty but believe that in certain circumstances war is
> justifiable.
Of course. I am one such. Though perhaps I would say "necessary" rather
than "justifiable".
Christian Husvik
> Christian Husvik <chu...@online.no> wrote:
> > Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > RTR <remskirt@if_yer_a_spammer_no_one_is_home.com> wrote:
> > > [...]
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > in this book, [...].
> >
> > Regarding the decadence described in LTW:
> >
> > Are you sure this is describing an increased decadence in the _Culture_?
> > The earlier books were mostly about life in Contact or even Special
> > Circumstances. It is only natural that life on an orbital, where most
of
> > the plot in LTW takes place, would seem slightly more "decadent", don't
> you
> > think?
>
> _The Player of Games_ is set on an Orbital, at the beginning and end of
the
> book. Gurgeh's friends and acquaintances are normal people, not refugees
> from a Mountain Dew commercial.
The _introduction_ to The Player of Games and the "epiloque" is set on an
Orbital, but the real plot takes place within SC. And, as has been pointed
out elsewhere in this thread, Gurgeh _is_ quite special, and so are, one
would assume, his friends. And Gurgeh too encounters "normal people" or
fans, and they do not get a very flattering characterisazion.
By the way: What is Mountain Dew, and what would refugess from a commercial
for such a product look like?
Christian 8-)
Philip Armstrong
Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> >> >> >Spoilers
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
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>> >> >> >
>> to destroy Masaq' Hub, and Banks isn't trying to make out they deserve
>> to die horribly because they have a bad attitude that is shared by
>> probably large numbers of high caste Chelgrians.
>
>I had a discussion with Louis Armstrong about this before. Look, you can't
IANatrumpetplayer :)
(I presume you mean me!)
>evaluate a work of fiction by its own internal logic; fiction is not
>history. If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author put
>it there. Banks made sure that we knew that they were, personally, bad guys
>before writing one of his vengeance killing scenes. The reason for the
>scene isn't because of "the attempt to destroy Masaq' Hub", it's because
>Banks chose to tell that story.
hmm. My view might be that internal logic is not the *only* way of
evaluating / criticising a work of fiction. It is a valid one in and
of itself, but there are other viewpoints / ways of looking at a work
which can give different insights.
For instance, I think you've said before that Banks' books are
religious (or have strong religious overtones). Some people took
strong issue with this point of view, perhaps partially because you
made statements about what you believed Banks actually meant.
For me that allegory was an interesting way of looking at Banks' works
that opened up new interpretations. But I don't think that because its
a beguilling viewpoint that it reflects 'what the books are really
about' or 'what Banks really means subconsciously'. There are other
ways of looking at the books which would be just as beguiling, and no
more or less correct. None of them would necessarily represent 'what
the author *really* meant' even subconsciously; but then in this
postmodernist world, what 'the author really meant' can be pretty
irrelevant :)
I suppose I'm trying to paraphrase chunks of postmodernist textual
analysis and failing to do it justice...
Anybody want to bring in Derrida? I'll be capitalising the word text
next...
:)
Phil
--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt
Philip Armstrong
therother <ther...@clara.co.uk> wrote:
>At one of the readings, Banks said that the humans in LTW were there as
>light relief. You seem to be forgetting that the humans of the Culture,
>although they are capable of being more intelligent than us, are generally
>spoilt and pampered. They have no need to be witty, or insightful or deep
>or serious. No need whatsoever. It won't get them popularity, or fame, or
>intellectual recognition.
Assuming that those are the only things that motivate people...
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Anybody want to bring in Derrida? I'll be capitalising the word text
> next...
No, no, you're not doing it right. A true post-modernist would hyphen
capital-ising. :-) Or perhaps slash it. Capital/ising.
Richard Puchalsky
> >people who wanted to could have had a real-time simulation of the whole
> >thing that was undistinguishable from reality -- it would have been
exactly
> >like being there. Their willingness to reinvent money just to be able to
> >say that they were really there is decadent.
>
> simulation for reality that's "decadent".
Uh - that's what I said, in the paragraph above. Yet you seem to be
disagreeing.
Richard Puchalsky
> On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 00:14:00 GMT, "Richard Puchalsky"
A good illustration of why SF is a genre of popular fiction, and why SF
works are generally not of literary quality. I've never seen an SF book
that created a universe after which things just happened "logically"; they
happen according to the author's preconceptions. But we're not supposed to
talk about the author because all they did was something like feeding the
initial conditions into a computer modelling program, right?
> I could
> quite easily imagine a writer creating a universe based on a
> particular set of premises, creating a culture and writing books with
> their viewpoint within that culture, even if that culture did things
> that the author disapproves of.
Uh huh. I often see this kind of "the Culture is just a thought construct"
stuff from people, including Banks. I guess it's just coincidental that the
Culture shares the exact same political values of the sympathetic characters
in most of Banks' non-SF books.
> >If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author put
> >it there. Banks made sure that we knew that they were, personally, bad
guys
> >before writing one of his vengeance killing scenes. The reason for the
> >scene isn't because of "the attempt to destroy Masaq' Hub", it's because
> >Banks chose to tell that story.
>
> True. But how do you know that Banks approves of the way all his
> characters act? Maybe he feels that they "follow logically" from his
> basic premise. Does he therefore approve of what Frank Cunninghame
> does? Do we assume that Banks either tortured small animals as a
> child, or wanted to, and thinks that murdering your young relatives is
> OK? Which of the two antagonists in Complicity does he approve of?
> Either? Both? Or is it just a nice story he thought up?
Frank in TWF is a "feral child" character, and Banks doesn't present him as
someone to emulate. And the problem of Complicity goes away if you don't
share Banks' assumptions! If you were a conservative, and didn't beleive in
the justice of any of the causes that are reasons for killing in Complicity,
there is no moral conflict, there is just a killer and a weakling.
Similarly, if you thought that acts of random, violent vengeance were an
incredibly stupid way to react to injustice, there is no moral conflict in
Complicity. And Banks clearly thought there should be one, otherwise he
wouldn't have named it Complicity. Complicity with what?
>
> >> What Government? The Culture doesn't have one. It's probable that
> >> they were carried out by a group of Minds directing this particular
> >> operation.
> >
> >The Culture effectively does have groups of Minds who decide policy.
> >Externally, they are no different from a government as far as foreign
> >peoples are concerned.
>
> But not as far as the Culture is concerned. The anti-death-penalty
> argument that the State should not kill is an internal one, not an
> external one. I imagine there are some people who are against the
> death penalty but believe that in certain circumstances war is
> justifiable.
If you wish, you can substitute a belief that acts of international
terrorism are not a good or effective way of responding to provocations.
>
> >> They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
> >> the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
> >> savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
> >> persuade the Chelgrians not to continue to try to avenge the war dead.
> >
> >Yes. As I said, it was IMO a miserably stupid ending.
>
> But as far as I can see we have your opinion that it was miserably
> stupid, but not much more.
There is no way to prove this kind of thing one way or the other, there are
only opinions. I've explained most of the reasons for mine. Except I'll
add that the acts of the Culture at the end of LTW were pragmatically as
well as morally wrong. They wouldn't have worked, and could easily have
been replaced by some other deterrent.
Richard Puchalsky
> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >> > > > > >> >> >Spoilers
> >> > > > > >> >> >
> >> > > > > >> >> >
> >> > > > > >> >> >
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ideas.
> >I don't think anyone can read more than two of Banks' works and not agree
> >with this.
>
> Certainly there's a strong thread of this running through his more
> realistic non-M works. Cameron Colley's and Prentice McHoan's
> worldviews seem to be close, and possibly close to Banks's. But I'm
> not sure you can easily say this about the SF books, after all Banks's
> brand of Scottish socialism is a bit irrelevant in the Culture.
In what way? They seem to share all the same basic assumptions. The
Culture just operates from the technological point where production is
essentially unlimited.
>
> >All of his sympathetic characters beleive essentially the same
> >thing, and all of his villains are stamped from the same mold.
>
> Which is Frank Cunninghame? And, in Complicity, both the bad guy and
> the good guy have essentially the same politics. In fact, I have
> never really seen Banks's work as having proper heroes and villains -
> Horza and Zakalwe, for example, are both or neither, and most of his
> work I see as being ethically complex, much like real life in fact.
Frank is not a sympathetic character or a villain; he's an unsympathetic
though understandably human character. The villains in Complicity aren't
either the killer or his friend, they are all the cardboard cutouts who the
killer folds, staples, and mutilates. Horza and Zakalwe are characters from
two of Banks' best three or four books, IMO, and illustrate that Banks once
wrote a lot better than he's writing now.
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >> >> >> >Spoilers
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
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> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> >
> >> Surely the reason for the two killings is the attempt
> >> to destroy Masaq' Hub, and Banks isn't trying to make out they deserve
> >> to die horribly because they have a bad attitude that is shared by
> >> probably large numbers of high caste Chelgrians.
> >
can't
>
> IANatrumpetplayer :)
>
> (I presume you mean me!)
Oops -- Yes, I did. I'm bad at remembering names.
>
> >evaluate a work of fiction by its own internal logic; fiction is not
> >history. If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author
put
> >it there. Banks made sure that we knew that they were, personally, bad
guys
> >before writing one of his vengeance killing scenes. The reason for the
> >scene isn't because of "the attempt to destroy Masaq' Hub", it's because
> >Banks chose to tell that story.
>
> hmm. My view might be that internal logic is not the *only* way of
> evaluating / criticising a work of fiction. It is a valid one in and
> of itself, but there are other viewpoints / ways of looking at a work
> which can give different insights.
OK, I'll sort of agree with that. Internal logic can be a valid technique,
*if* other techniques are also used when they appear to be relevant. But
you can't take a criticism -- mine for example -- that depends on looking at
the work from outside, and say that it's wrong because it's contrary to the
internal logic of the book. If I criticized the internal logic of LTW by
saying that SC wouldn't do what it was described as doing in that situation,
you could properly argue that my understanding of the internal logic of the
Culture was incorrect. But that is not really the criticism that I was
trying to make in the paragraph partially quoted above.
>
> For instance, I think you've said before that Banks' books are
> religious (or have strong religious overtones). Some people took
> strong issue with this point of view, perhaps partially because you
> made statements about what you believed Banks actually meant.
>
Armchair psychoanalysis is a bit different from detecting certain themes in
the authorial voice of the work. I can only say that, in my opinion,
certain things about the Culture only make sense if they were written with
reference to certain religious ideas, and certain authorial choices in the
style of the writing reinforce that. There is no particular reason why the
drones have to float in the air and create field-based limbs at will, based
on the internal logic of the work -- there are many other technological
paths that I could imagine Culture design following. Banks chose to
etherialize his machines and give them a certain type of "guardian being"
relationship with humans. No one can say exactly why he did this, but I can
say that I think this makes more sense as an expression of religious feeling
than as anything else.
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
the
> > book. Gurgeh's friends and acquaintances are normal people, not
refugees
> > from a Mountain Dew commercial.
>
> The _introduction_ to The Player of Games and the "epiloque" is set on an
> Orbital, but the real plot takes place within SC. And, as has been
pointed
> out elsewhere in this thread, Gurgeh _is_ quite special, and so are, one
> would assume, his friends. And Gurgeh too encounters "normal people" or
> fans, and they do not get a very flattering characterisazion.
I don't see anything in PoG to suggest that Gurgeh's friends are an elite;
the main two are an old family friend and someone Gurgeh is interested in
romantically who has no particular elite status. The people at the parties
that Gurgeh goes to aren't supposed to be anything special. And Gurgeh's
fans get reletively flattering characterizations in comparison to the people
in LTW.
>
> By the way: What is Mountain Dew, and what would refugess from a
commercial
> for such a product look like?
Mountain Dew is a soft drink, high in caffeine and sugar, sold in the U.S.
It has a long-playing ad campaign in which teens doing various kinds of
dangerous "extreme sports" say "Do the Dew!" in what I think is a rather
moronic fashion as they risk breaking their necks and thus gain status among
their fellow teens.
RTR
>
> Armchair psychoanalysis is a bit different from detecting certain
themes in
> the authorial voice of the work. I can only say that, in my opinion,
> certain things about the Culture only make sense if they were written
with
> reference to certain religious ideas, and certain authorial choices in
the
> style of the writing reinforce that. There is no particular reason
why the
> drones have to float in the air and create field-based limbs at will,
based
> on the internal logic of the work -- there are many other
technological
> paths that I could imagine Culture design following. Banks chose to
> etherialize his machines and give them a certain type of "guardian
being"
> relationship with humans. No one can say exactly why he did this, but
I can
> say that I think this makes more sense as an expression of religious
feeling
> than as anything else.
>
I've always thought that Banks did a rather good job of trying hard
*not* to anthropomorphize the drones by making them essentially
featureless 'cases' of vaguely cubic shape, that other than some
occasional surface decoration (gloss/pattern/material) is essentially
just a minimally functional 'vessel' for the stuff inside. The use of
maniple fields and colored aura fields as physical and emotional
interfaces are (IMO) hardly deific, so much as simply pragmatic. Why
have limbs when fields are more configurable? I distinctly remember my
first Culture experience impressing me greatly with the thought "hey,
for a change an author who doesn't create AI/robotic 'citizens' who all
want to be Pinocchio (or Data, or the Tin Man, or ....) and someday
qualify for 'human'. <bah!>
From a human standpoint wouldn't it make more senses to have a more
anthropomorphic drone shape, rather like the Mind avatars tend to take
to deal with humans? I think the drones' distinct choice to NOT be
viewed as such is a symbol of their essential other-ness and distinction
as their own beings on a par with -- not in any way, even
*historically* -- classifiable as on equivalent status with
(physically), servants of, or protectors of humans. (Except by personal
choice or by SC working assignments, of course.) I know I'm answering
commentary where you seem to hint that drones are somehow 'angelic' with
arguements that they are not 'human-like', but aren't angels generally
portrayed as very anthropomorphic, albiet beatific, beings? ("In his
own image" and all that jazz...)
I've also thought that I detect a fairly broad streak of anti-'Religion'
sentiment in Banks' works. Which is not to say a lack of some form of
spirituality (although I dread using that word with all its
mealy-mouthed crystal-tuning and past-life-channelling new-age
connotations) so much as lack of belief in any organized religion being
actually *based* on anything close to the truth. In Whit the tenets of
their faith is drug-enhance revisionist history, the Hushz (sp?) in AADB
are essentially faith-blinded despots too bloody obtuse to see they're
being used as pawns in a bigger game, in UoW the only religious order
brands themselves with targets on their heads, even in LTW religion and
the afterlife are treated as a 'manufactured' thing. (Hope that doesn't
qualify as a spoiler.) Banks seems to believe in some greater symmetry
of some kind (the universe tending to generate human-like forms as some
sort of galactic physiochemical 'rule', the higher planes accessible
(Excessible? <grin>) beyond the Grid, the human and Mind disbelief in a
'soul' that is apart from one's mind-state and body, the feeling of
'finding one's place' and predestination that intertwine the
protagonist's personal journey in Crow Road [although it does not take
him in the direction *he* might have hoped/wished for earlier on in the
work], Whit's decision to believe that *something* of her and her
'cult's' past is somehow based on divinity), it has almost never taken
on any sort of standard Judeo-Christian cant in my readings.
Just goes to show YMMV, as will my own thread regarding LTW which I've
finally finished and had some time to sort out in my mind.
RTR
therother
> Christian Husvik <chu...@online.no> wrote:
> > Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > > > Spoilers? Probably not, but who knows:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > _The Player of Games_ is set on an Orbital, at the beginning and end
of
> the
> > > book. Gurgeh's friends and acquaintances are normal people, not
> refugees
> > > from a Mountain Dew commercial.
> >
> > The _introduction_ to The Player of Games and the "epiloque" is set on
an
> > Orbital, but the real plot takes place within SC. And, as has been
> pointed
> > out elsewhere in this thread, Gurgeh _is_ quite special, and so are, one
> > would assume, his friends. And Gurgeh too encounters "normal people" or
> > fans, and they do not get a very flattering characterisazion.
>
> I don't see anything in PoG to suggest that Gurgeh's friends are an elite;
> the main two are an old family friend and someone Gurgeh is interested in
> romantically who has no particular elite status. The people at the
parties
> that Gurgeh goes to aren't supposed to be anything special. And Gurgeh's
> fans get reletively flattering characterizations in comparison to the
people
> in LTW.
There is another possibility. We know that the people of the Culture
generally go through cyclic changes, usually based on the fashions of that
time.
At the time of LTW, the people of the Culture (or just the Masaq orbital)
could have just made a conscious decision to be airheads for a few
centuries. By the next book, they could all be very interested in
intellectual pursuits, reversing the trend of LTW. But as I said before,
Banks wanted the humans to be comic relief to the main alien and machine
protagonists
therother
> Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 00:14:00 GMT, "Richard Puchalsky"
> > >> >> >> >Spoilers
> > >> >> >> >
> > >> >> >> >
> > >> >> >> >
> > >> >> >> >
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> > >> >> >> >
<snip>
> > >> They were carried out as an act of war, a demonstration of
> > >> the Culture's overwhelming power, an act of disproportionate and
> > >> savage retribution to say "don't fuck with the Culture" and to
> > >> persuade the Chelgrians not to continue to try to avenge the war
dead.
> > >
> > >Yes. As I said, it was IMO a miserably stupid ending.
> >
> > But as far as I can see we have your opinion that it was miserably
> > stupid, but not much more.
>
> There is no way to prove this kind of thing one way or the other, there
are
> only opinions. I've explained most of the reasons for mine. Except I'll
> add that the acts of the Culture at the end of LTW were pragmatically as
> well as morally wrong. They wouldn't have worked, and could easily have
> been replaced by some other deterrent.
I would agree that the actions were morally wrong to us. Also, it would
probably be wrong to the vast majority of the human population of the
Culture.
However, I would debate that it was pragmatically wrong, basically because I
feel that the killing were carried out for a different reason than you.
Nevertheless, I agree that they are not particularly useful or needed as a
deterrent for the Chel.
You have put forward your arguments, so please stay with me as I put forward
mine:-
Contact interferes in the Chelgrain society. Whether this intervention goes
amiss or not is a moot point. The mere fact that they could do this without
their knowledge must convince the Chel, even if they didn't know it already,
that the Culture is way out of their league. As a result, they plan no
retaliation, knowing it would most probably be futile and would bring the
wrath of the Culture down on them.
Now, at least two things happen to change this view. One, the
Chelgrain-Puen tell them that the war dead aren't getting into their version
of the afterlife. Two, unknown allies appear seeming to want to help the
Chel gain revenge on the Culture. This convinces at least some in the
higher Castes that they must act, and the plan is formed, most likely by
their allies (which I believe are SC, but that's not important here).
This plan is easily foiled by the SC. This must convince the Chel that,
even with the help of their allies and the Chelgrain-Puen, they stand little
or no chance against the Culture.
If you accept all this, then it seems like overkill (no pun intended) that
the Culture would send a terror device to kill the two Chel. As you have
repeatedly said, it does make any sense morally or practically. Unless you
accept that the this was a warning not directly aimed at the Chel.
It make far more sense, IMO, if this was a warning to the other Involveds.
Perhaps the Culture felt that the perception of the Culture by the galaxy as
a whole was that they were becoming decadent and soft. Perhaps they felt it
was about time to remind them that the Culture has no intention of slipping
quietly into the night.
therother
Richard Puchalsky
> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > >> >> >> >
> > > >> >> >> >
> > > >> >> >> >
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> > > >> >> >> >
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> > > >> >> >> >
> > > >> >> >> >
> > > >> >> >> >
[...]
> If you accept all this, then it seems like overkill (no pun intended) that
> the Culture would send a terror device to kill the two Chel. As you have
> repeatedly said, it does make any sense morally or practically. Unless
you
> accept that the this was a warning not directly aimed at the Chel.
>
> It make far more sense, IMO, if this was a warning to the other Involveds.
> Perhaps the Culture felt that the perception of the Culture by the galaxy
as
> a whole was that they were becoming decadent and soft. Perhaps they felt
it
> was about time to remind them that the Culture has no intention of
slipping
> quietly into the night.
That's an interesting theory. Certainly that's how many modern nations
think; that a few bombings of one terrorist nation will keep the others in
line.
It's plausible, but I feel that it's unlikely. Rather than fall back on an
argument from the internal logic of the book -- i.e., would the Culture, if
it existed, really do that in that situation? -- I'll go back to an external
one and ask why Banks chose to write the scene that way. Certainly the
internal logic of the book didn't *force* him to write the scene that way,
he could quite plausibly have had the Culture react otherwise.
All right -- why then the two passages in the book from the viewpoint of the
terror weapon? From pg. 170:
"She wished that she had chosen a name. If she had she would have spoken it
now; voiced it to the clear air like some declaration of intent."
Uh huh. Banks wants us to sympathize with this terror weapon. The page
continues with the weapon feeling the ancestral joy of the hunt, etc., as if
a terror machine made of Edust would need to feel such a thing.
In the final killing scene, it becomes obvious that the terror machine is in
no danger from the Chelgrian defenses. Why all this romantic call to battle
stuff, then? It's a grisly execution scene, not a combat.
Consider the different ways that Banks could have written this scene. The
Masaq Hub Mind tells Quilan what's going on before they both die; the Mind
could also have told Quilan/us that the two people who planned the attack
were going to be killed, or had already been killed. Or the scene could
have been written from the viewpoint of one of the Chel who was killed. Or
from the viewpoint of a Mind watching what occurred. But no, Banks wants to
shock us with the immediacy of this killing, he doesn't trust his writing,
or the reader, with the natural end of the book, the death of Quilan and the
Hub Mind -- the Mind being the balancing, self-chosen sacrifice that makes
the Chel attack claim a victory, at least in part (they imply that the
deaths need not really be one-for-one) and in that way makes some recompense
for the Culture's actions, which caused 5 billion Chel their lives.
It's a cheap scene, and Banks scatters other scenes throughout the book to
justify it emotionally, like the earlier terror weapon piece, the Chel
mutilation customs, the killing of the servant, the personal killing of the
Culture scholar by Eweirl, etc. No work of art can stoop to these kinds of
gross manipulations of the reader and remain a work of art. And I disagree
strongly with the moral implications of the scene and the likely effect it
would have in reinforcing the kind of real-world policies that Banks has
said that he disagrees with.
All this is, of course, my opinion.
Richard Puchalsky
> "Richard Puchalsky" <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
Yes, it pragmatically works. It's not the only idea that would work,
though. For instance, Banks introduces the concept of EDust in LTW. The
drones could have been made out of that, and they would be ground-based
shapeshifters. Or why really bother with matter at all? They could have all
their working parts in hyperspace. Or they could have limbs but not
anything close to a human or animal form. After all, there is no extension
of modern physics that says that it *has* to be possible in theory to build
a machine that can float in the air and create limbs out of fields as
needed.
> From a human standpoint wouldn't it make more senses to have a more
> anthropomorphic drone shape, rather like the Mind avatars tend to take
> to deal with humans? I think the drones' distinct choice to NOT be
> viewed as such is a symbol of their essential other-ness and distinction
> as their own beings on a par with -- not in any way, even
> *historically* -- classifiable as on equivalent status with
> (physically), servants of, or protectors of humans. (Except by personal
> choice or by SC working assignments, of course.)
They aren't of equivalent status to humans, they are superior, in abilities
as least. Yet when we see them they are always slowed down to the rythyms
of human society. Psychologically, they occupy a certain mental archetype.
And if that last sentence makes any sense, I'm lucky. :-)
Why are the Minds always stepping and fetching for people, showing them how
to use automatic drink dispensers and the like? Surely they could automate
all that, and while it's possible that they could do it with a small portion
of their mental capacity, why would they want to? No human that I know
really likes boring and repetitive drudgework, even a little of it. Answer:
because that makes the Minds godlike parent figures that are always watching
over their human charges.
> I've also thought that I detect a fairly broad streak of anti-'Religion'
> sentiment in Banks' works. Which is not to say a lack of some form of
> spirituality (although I dread using that word with all its
> mealy-mouthed crystal-tuning and past-life-channelling new-age
> connotations) so much as lack of belief in any organized religion being
> actually *based* on anything close to the truth.
Oh yes, you're right. Banks formally stated that he wrote as an atheist,
and every one of his books either shows religion as evil, mocks it, or
treats it as a mental disorder. He is definately not Judeo-Christian. But
so what? Not all religion is Judeo-Christian, and we're talking about a
religious tone in the authorial voice, which seems to be there whether Banks
intended it or not.
Note : we've been through a whole round of people saying that the Minds
can't be Gods because they aren't omnipotent, omniscient, and transcendent.
Let's not go through that again; those definitions only apply to the God of
Christianity, and are not present in other religious systems.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> I've also thought that I detect a fairly broad streak of anti-'Religion'
> sentiment in Banks' works. Which is not to say a lack of some form of
> spirituality (although I dread using that word with all its
> mealy-mouthed crystal-tuning and past-life-channelling new-age
> connotations)
Nothing wrong with taking back words appropriated by others. :-)
so much as lack of belief in any organized religion being
> actually *based* on anything close to the truth.
And positive dislike of, I'd say.
In Whit the tenets of
> their faith is drug-enhance revisionist history, the Hushz (sp?) in AADB
> are essentially faith-blinded despots too bloody obtuse to see they're
> being used as pawns in a bigger game, in UoW the only religious order
> brands themselves with targets on their heads, even in LTW religion and
> the afterlife are treated as a 'manufactured' thing.
More than that, the "religious" entities are downright evil in Banks'
book. And obeying their crazy rules is the motor of everything bad that
happens.
(Hope that doesn't
> qualify as a spoiler.) Banks seems to believe in some greater symmetry
> of some kind (the universe tending to generate human-like forms as some
> sort of galactic physiochemical 'rule',
There are plenty non-human forms, I guess they are indeed the norm. The
Idirans are perhaps the most human-like, but the Homomdan arent's, and
neither are the Affront, the Chelgrians, or the airshpere fauna.
the higher planes accessible
> (Excessible? <grin>) beyond the Grid, the human and Mind disbelief in a
> 'soul' that is apart from one's mind-state and body,
But the point is made quite clearly in Excession that if you were so
stupid to believe that you could do without a physical body, you usually
ended up thoroughly dead and all your great dreams and high ideals
reduced to nothing. I see that as a nice disposing of the notion of
"soul", myself.
the feeling of
> 'finding one's place' and predestination that intertwine the
> protagonist's personal journey in Crow Road [although it does not take
> him in the direction *he* might have hoped/wished for earlier on in the
> work],
Actually, the protagonist in Crow Road IMHO manages, in the end, to
become an adult precisely because he stops looking for meaning, purpose
and destiny in life, and accepts it for the accidental, random thing
that it is. I have always taken this as the message of the book.
Whit's decision to believe that *something* of her and her
> 'cult's' past is somehow based on divinity), it has almost never taken
> on any sort of standard Judeo-Christian cant in my readings.
Yeah, Whit. I had almost managed to forget that. :-(
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> It make far more sense, IMO, if this was a warning to the other Involveds.
> Perhaps the Culture felt that the perception of the Culture by the galaxy as
> a whole was that they were becoming decadent and soft. Perhaps they felt it
> was about time to remind them that the Culture has no intention of slipping
> quietly into the night.
Yes but, you know, it would much more be like the Culture to do
something bloodless and maybe with a touch of humor, like having all the
Chelgrian babies from then on being born with "THE CHELGRIAN-PUEL ARE
ASSHOLES" written in black spots (and an elegant font) on white pelt.
That's the Culture we expect; torture and death seem unexcusably gross
and unrefined. Any Mind that thought that up should be ashamed of
itself. Why, it almost brought itself down to the level of humans! As
Oscar Wilde would probably have said, it's worse than evil, it's vulgar.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> >In this case, yes they have. It was clearly explained in the text that
>> >people who wanted to could have had a real-time simulation of the whole
>> >thing that was undistinguishable from reality -- it would have been
>exactly
>> >like being there. Their willingness to reinvent money just to be able to
>> >say that they were really there is decadent.
>>
>> Surely, if anything, it's their refusal to substitute a 100% realistic
>> simulation for reality that's "decadent".
>
>Uh - that's what I said, in the paragraph above. Yet you seem to be
>disagreeing.
You said "their willingness to reinvent money". I just think that
happened as a by-product. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs. But I
don't see how the reappearance of an ad hoc means of exchange as a
by-product of people's desires to see a live performance can be
considered decadent, it just happened naturally due to the laws of
supply-and-demand.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Phil Clark <ph...@saxmund.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> >> > > > > >> >> >Spoilers
>> >> > > > > >> >> >
>> >> > > > > >> >> >
>> >> > > > > >> >> >
>> >> > > > > >> >> >
>> >> > > > > >> >> >
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>> >> > > > > >> >> >
>> >> > > > > >> >> >
>> >Both Banks' SF and non-SF books propound a certain set of political
>ideas.
>> >I don't think anyone can read more than two of Banks' works and not agree
>> >with this.
>>
>> Certainly there's a strong thread of this running through his more
>> realistic non-M works. Cameron Colley's and Prentice McHoan's
>> worldviews seem to be close, and possibly close to Banks's. But I'm
>> not sure you can easily say this about the SF books, after all Banks's
>> brand of Scottish socialism is a bit irrelevant in the Culture.
>
>In what way? They seem to share all the same basic assumptions. The
>Culture just operates from the technological point where production is
>essentially unlimited.
Well, I'd guess that Banks's Scottish socialism would involve
nationalisation of (some of) the means of production, the elevation of
workers' rights and preservation of jobs above the need for economic
efficiency and profit maximisation, the maintenance of an effective
and fairly generous social security system, the use of taxation to
redistribute income, and the provision of certain essential services
(eg health, public utilities, public transport) through state- or
municipally-owned bodies. At lest that's what fairly moderate "old
labour" used to believe in before Blair. It may, or may not, be
socially liberal - although I'd guess Banks himself is fairly liberal.
The Culture is some sort of communistic/anarchistic liberal
collective. But the means of production are machines who, although
sentient, can produce without effort, so there is no proletariat.
Resources are effectively unlimited, and available to all, so there is
no requirement for income redistribution or social security, and
provision of essential services appears to be a trivial matter.
Hence my comment that socialism is irrelevant - without the need to
allocate scarce resources much of modern politics becomes irrelevant.
I suppose you could also say that in assuming that society can evolve
beyond the capitalist into something like the Culture, Banks is taking
a Marxian view of history, but that's a bit of a red herring as Marx
has never been that important in traditional moderate British
socialism.
Interestingly, although I reject Banks's modern day politics - I see
my self as a liberal both in terms of social policy (you could say
verging on the libertarian) and in terms of economic policy (ie
free-market) - I find a lot to commend itself in the Culture.
>> >All of his sympathetic characters beleive essentially the same
>> >thing, and all of his villains are stamped from the same mold.
>>
>> Which is Frank Cunninghame? And, in Complicity, both the bad guy and
>> the good guy have essentially the same politics. In fact, I have
>> never really seen Banks's work as having proper heroes and villains -
>> Horza and Zakalwe, for example, are both or neither, and most of his
>> work I see as being ethically complex, much like real life in fact.
>
>Frank is not a sympathetic character or a villain; he's an unsympathetic
>though understandably human character. The villains in Complicity aren't
>either the killer or his friend, they are all the cardboard cutouts who the
>killer folds, staples, and mutilates. Horza and Zakalwe are characters from
>two of Banks' best three or four books, IMO, and illustrate that Banks once
>wrote a lot better than he's writing now.
I see your point, but surely all books have some characters more
fleshed-out than others? I think that in Excession and LTW Banks
wanted to write more about the Culture - as the main character - and
therefore none of the various entities take centre stage in the same
way. I'm not sure you can say it's a decline, anyway, as IMO some of
his earlier work wasn't his best either - such as Canal Dreams, AADB
and (I'm afraid ) CP which I'm not sure is much more than a
well-written and very enjoyable space opera yarn. Like many authors,
he has comparative highs and lows - and writes some books in a more
serious and literary vein than others.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> >I had a discussion with [Phil]
>> >Armstrong about this before. Look, you can't
>> >evaluate a work of fiction by its own internal logic
>>
>> Err... bollocks.
>>
>> Surely an important part of the genre of SF is to create and describe
>> an internally consistent and plausible alternative universe. Having
>> created it, then things that happen must follow logically.
>
>A good illustration of why SF is a genre of popular fiction, and why SF
>works are generally not of literary quality. I've never seen an SF book
>that created a universe after which things just happened "logically"; they
>happen according to the author's preconceptions. But we're not supposed to
>talk about the author because all they did was something like feeding the
>initial conditions into a computer modelling program, right?
Well, to a certain extent, of course. But then the author sets up the
initial conditions, and then computes what happens. However, part of
what you say, IIRC, is that the two killings at the end are out of
character for the Culture, so you are already evaluating LTW in
relation to its own internal logic, and that of the Culture as
described in previous books. Even in mainstream serious fiction, you
would complain if the main character did something completely out of
character in the middle of the book - and would complain that this bit
of the book didn't make sense because of that.
>> I could
>> quite easily imagine a writer creating a universe based on a
>> particular set of premises, creating a culture and writing books with
>> their viewpoint within that culture, even if that culture did things
>> that the author disapproves of.
>
>Uh huh. I often see this kind of "the Culture is just a thought construct"
>stuff from people, including Banks. I guess it's just coincidental that the
>Culture shares the exact same political values of the sympathetic characters
>in most of Banks' non-SF books.
See my other post on Banks's politics... I certainly think that "exact
same" is an overstatement.
Yes, the Culture can be seen as a vaguely left wing/anarchist
construct, but just because he writes about a civilisation that he
finds reasonably satisfactory because it fits in with some of his
modern-day political view, it doesn't follow that he writes about
other things because he likes them, or feels that way. These bits
could still be "thought constructs".
>> >If something is in a work of fiction, it's because the author put
>> >it there. [snip]
>>
>> True. But how do you know that Banks approves of the way all his
>> characters act? Maybe he feels that they "follow logically" from his
>> basic premise. Does he therefore approve of what Frank Cunninghame
>> does? Do we assume that Banks either tortured small animals as a
>> child, or wanted to, and thinks that murdering your young relatives is
>> OK? Which of the two antagonists in Complicity does he approve of?
>> Either? Both? Or is it just a nice story he thought up?
>
>Frank in TWF is a "feral child" character, and Banks doesn't present him as
>someone to emulate. And the problem of Complicity goes away if you don't
>share Banks' assumptions! [snip]
So here you're attempting to have your cake and eat it. In LTW you
assume Banks is in favour of capital punishment, or state terrorism
and torture, because he writes about it being done by the Culture, but
when he wrote about similarly "bad" things in other books, he isn't in
favour of them - so he has changed, got worse, whatever.
Phil Clark
<rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>therother <ther...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>> > > >> >> >> >Spoilers
>> > > >> >> >> >
>> > > >> >> >> >
>> > > >> >> >> >
>> > > >> >> >> >
>> > > >> >> >> >
>> > > >> >> >> >
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>"She wished that she had chosen a name. If she had she would have spoken it
>now; voiced it to the clear air like some declaration of intent."
>
>Uh huh. Banks wants us to sympathize with this terror weapon. The page
>continues with the weapon feeling the ancestral joy of the hunt, etc., as if
>a terror machine made of Edust would need to feel such a thing.
>
>In the final killing scene, it becomes obvious that the terror machine is in
>no danger from the Chelgrian defenses. Why all this romantic call to battle
>stuff, then? It's a grisly execution scene, not a combat.
That's nothing new. The Offensive Units, in Excession at least,
appear to think like this as well.
>Consider the different ways that Banks could have written this scene. The
>Masaq Hub Mind tells Quilan what's going on before they both die; the Mind
>could also have told Quilan/us that the two people who planned the attack
>were going to be killed, or had already been killed.
The mind more or less did this anyway, "a few people - no more - will
pay with their lives" (I'm quoting from memory, but I'm sure that's
more or less right.
>Banks wants to
>shock us with the immediacy of this killing, he doesn't trust his writing,
>or the reader, with the natural end of the book, the death of Quilan and the
>Hub Mind [...] It's a cheap scene, and Banks scatters other scenes
>throughout the book to
>justify it emotionally, like the earlier terror weapon piece, the Chel
>mutilation customs, the killing of the servant, the personal killing of the
>Culture scholar by Eweirl, etc. No work of art can stoop to these kinds of
>gross manipulations of the reader and remain a work of art.
But surely this, again, is nothing new. We've some to expect people
to die in grisly, unusual or shocking ways in Banks books, from the
Wasp Factory onwards - it's something of a leitmotiv running through
all (or most of) his works.
Would't it be less honest to have not described the killings, just to
mention them in passing? Faced with the awful reality, the reader has
to confront what killing someone actually means. Mentioned in
passing, it would hardly have been noticed.
Philip Armstrong
Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Philip Armstrong <ph...@kantaka.co.uk> wrote:.
>> Richard Puchalsky <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>can't
>> IANatrumpetplayer :)
>> (I presume you mean me!)
>Oops -- Yes, I did. I'm bad at remembering names.
:) Not to worry... I can never remember who I've 'discoursed' with on
usenet either usually.
>> hmm. My view might be that internal logic is not the *only* way of
>> evaluating / criticising a work of fiction. It is a valid one in and
>> of itself, but there are other viewpoints / ways of looking at a work
>> which can give different insights.
>OK, I'll sort of agree with that. Internal logic can be a valid technique,
>*if* other techniques are also used when they appear to be relevant. But
>you can't take a criticism -- mine for example -- that depends on looking at
>the work from outside, and say that it's wrong because it's contrary to the
>internal logic of the book.[snip]
Note that I wasn't trying to defend internal logic per se. Rather I
was saying that the different ways of critiquing a book/text/whatever
are all equally valid in some sense.
>> For instance, I think you've said before that Banks' books are
>> religious (or have strong religious overtones). Some people took
>> strong issue with this point of view, perhaps partially because you
>> made statements about what you believed Banks actually meant.
>Armchair psychoanalysis is a bit different from detecting certain themes in
>the authorial voice of the work. I can only say that, in my opinion,
>certain things about the Culture only make sense if they were written with
>reference to certain religious ideas, and certain authorial choices in the
>style of the writing reinforce that. There is no particular reason why the
>drones have to float in the air and create field-based limbs at will, based
>on the internal logic of the work -- there are many other technological
>paths that I could imagine Culture design following. Banks chose to
>etherialize his machines and give them a certain type of "guardian being"
>relationship with humans. No one can say exactly why he did this, but I can
>say that I think this makes more sense as an expression of religious feeling
>than as anything else.
And the crucial thing here (which I don't think I remember you saying
elsewhere, but then I haven't gone back over the posts to make
sure...) is that you point out that this viewpoint makes things fall
into place for *you*. My reading of your previous posts did seem to
imply that you thought this viewpoint 'right' or 'correct' in a
broader sense. And I think other people have argued with you on this
basis. It might not have been what you meant (?), but its what other
people may have read into your posts.
I think what I'm trying to say is that the existence of a valid
interpretation of a text doesn't mean that a) That's what the text
'really' means or b) That's what the author 'really' meant. From my
POV its a valid reading of the books that gives interesting
insights. Neither right nor wrong --- these terms simply don't
apply.
Argh. I told you I'd start using the word 'text' in anger...
:)
Phil
*?*{}I)(@ trn wants more new text than included text. I'm going to
have to hack the source...
Richard Puchalsky
> And the crucial thing here (which I don't think I remember you saying
> elsewhere, but then I haven't gone back over the posts to make
> sure...) is that you point out that this viewpoint makes things fall
> into place for *you*. My reading of your previous posts did seem to
> imply that you thought this viewpoint 'right' or 'correct' in a
> broader sense. And I think other people have argued with you on this
> basis. It might not have been what you meant (?), but its what other
> people may have read into your posts.
>
> I think what I'm trying to say is that the existence of a valid
> interpretation of a text doesn't mean that a) That's what the text
> 'really' means or b) That's what the author 'really' meant. From my
> POV its a valid reading of the books that gives interesting
> insights. Neither right nor wrong --- these terms simply don't
> apply.
Well, I'm sufficiently agreeable to postmodernism to believe that you can't
prove that one interpretation is the only correct one. I mean, if a book
describes red curtains in a scene, and someone makes an interpretation that
depends on there being blue curtains, you can disprove that one for factual
reasons. But if someone proposes an interpretation that doesn't conflict
with the factual elements of the text, there isn't really a way to prove
that one right and others wrong.
But I disagree with postmodernism in that I think that esthetic value really
exists, and that it is possible to agree on a set of esthetic values that
makes some works better than others. Similarly, I think that some
interpretations are better than others, whether because of their esthetic or
explanatory value. Naturally I think that my own are good, otherwise I
wouldn't propose them.
There would an element of false humility if I said that I really believed
that other people's interpretations were all as good as mine. I'm not
really a very humble person, which is why I use "IMO" and not "IMHO". That
could be a character flaw, but I'd rather have it be an honest character
flaw. But everyone is clearly free to believe that their own
interpretations are better than mine, and I try not to argue it past the
point where I've presented my own opinion fully.
Richard Puchalsky
> So here you're attempting to have your cake and eat it. In LTW you
> assume Banks is in favour of capital punishment, or state terrorism
> and torture, because he writes about it being done by the Culture, but
> when he wrote about similarly "bad" things in other books, he isn't in
> favour of them - so he has changed, got worse, whatever.
What matters is *how* he writes about them. I explained in another post how
he uses authorial tricks to try to make us sympathize with the Culture
terror machine. When he writes about Frank in TWF, he certainly doesn't try
to make us think that the actions taken are right, he just gives us enough
insight into Frank to understand why Frank does what he does.
Richard Puchalsky
> <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >> > > >> >> >> >Spoilers
> >> > > >> >> >> >
> >> > > >> >> >> >
> >> > > >> >> >> >
> >> > > >> >> >> >
> >> > > >> >> >> >
> >> > > >> >> >> >
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> >> > > >> >> >> >
it
> >now; voiced it to the clear air like some declaration of intent."
> >
> >Uh huh. Banks wants us to sympathize with this terror weapon. The page
> >continues with the weapon feeling the ancestral joy of the hunt, etc., as
if
> >a terror machine made of Edust would need to feel such a thing.
> >
> >In the final killing scene, it becomes obvious that the terror machine is
in
> >no danger from the Chelgrian defenses. Why all this romantic call to
battle
> >stuff, then? It's a grisly execution scene, not a combat.
>
> appear to think like this as well.
Under conditions in which they are under a real threat in combat. No OU
depicted in a previous book would think this way as it squashed a few bugs
that were basically incapable of fighting back.
>
> >Consider the different ways that Banks could have written this scene.
The
> >Masaq Hub Mind tells Quilan what's going on before they both die; the
Mind
> >could also have told Quilan/us that the two people who planned the attack
> >were going to be killed, or had already been killed.
>
> The mind more or less did this anyway, "a few people - no more - will
> pay with their lives" (I'm quoting from memory, but I'm sure that's
> more or less right.
But, as I said below, Banks wasn't satisified with that. The Mind could
have told Quilan that the specific two people who trained him would die. In
any case, I'm just trying to point out that there were numerous other
possible ways of writing the same scene.
>
> >Banks wants to
> >shock us with the immediacy of this killing, he doesn't trust his
writing,
> >or the reader, with the natural end of the book, the death of Quilan and
the
> >Hub Mind [...] It's a cheap scene, and Banks scatters other scenes
> >throughout the book to
> >justify it emotionally, like the earlier terror weapon piece, the Chel
> >mutilation customs, the killing of the servant, the personal killing of
the
> >Culture scholar by Eweirl, etc. No work of art can stoop to these kinds
of
> >gross manipulations of the reader and remain a work of art.
>
> But surely this, again, is nothing new. We've some to expect people
> to die in grisly, unusual or shocking ways in Banks books, from the
> Wasp Factory onwards - it's something of a leitmotiv running through
> all (or most of) his works.
Yes, a trashy leitmotif. It works in TWF and UoW because the killings are
done by a sociopathic person, in the first case, and a person under extreme
stress in the second, who has a very unusual history that we gradually come
to understand.
>
> Would't it be less honest to have not described the killings, just to
> mention them in passing? Faced with the awful reality, the reader has
> to confront what killing someone actually means. Mentioned in
> passing, it would hardly have been noticed.
Look at the scene in UoW where Zakalwe kills the Ethnarch. He describes why
the killing is wrong, then goes ahead and does it, then feels vaguely guilty
about it afterwards. We are left with a conflicted and nuanced emotional
portrayal of the killing, one that permits us to bring our own judgments to
it. Then re-read the set up and portrayal scenes of the LTW killing. There
is really no comparison.
BaldiePete
> CP which I'm not sure is much more than a
> well-written and very enjoyable space opera yarn.
What's wrong with well-written and very enjoyable space opera yarn. That's
precisely what I loved about that book.
BaldiePete
Phil Clark
Nuffink, I enjoyed it too. The context is that Richard Puchalsky
seemed to be trying to build it up into some sort of uber-literary
masterpiece, so he can demonstrate that Banks's work has slipped
since. Hence the exchange...
>> > [Puchalsky] All of his sympathetic characters beleive essentially the same
>> >thing, and all of his villains are stamped from the same mold.
>>
>> [Clark] ... In fact, I have
>> never really seen Banks's work as having proper heroes and villains -
>> Horza and Zakalwe, for example, are both or neither, and most of his
>> work I see as being ethically complex, much like real life in fact.
>
>[Puchalsky] Frank is not a sympathetic character or a villain; he's an unsympathetic
>though understandably human character.... Horza and Zakalwe are
>characters from
>two of Banks' best three or four books, IMO, and illustrate that Banks once
>wrote a lot better than he's writing now.
I'm not sure I like space opera that much, although Banks's SF tends
to have a strong element of it. CP is IMO a pretty good example of
the sub-genre, though.
JD, Etc.
>Why are the Minds always stepping and fetching for people, showing them how
>to use automatic drink dispensers and the like? Surely they could automate
>all that, and while it's possible that they could do it with a small portion
>of their mental capacity, why would they want to? No human that I know
>really likes boring and repetitive drudgework, even a little of it. Answer:
>because that makes the Minds godlike parent figures that are always watching
>over their human charges.
Several possible responses to this:
1. Banks is undoubtedly conscious of the religious qualities of the Minds, as
the books repeatedly mention that the Minds appear to lesser civilizations as
scarcely less than gods. Part of the fun of writing the books doubtless
included the pleasure of inventing a pantheon after his own tastes.
2. The Minds are the end product of a process of evolution that was
presumably optimized to produce machines that would enjoy feeling useful and
caring for life etc. Newly created Minds are heavily optimized in their
construction to share these values. One might argue that any civilization
that invented machines of equivalent power, but with less moralistic
inclinations, would Sublime rather rapidly (after all, why stay Involved when
you could sojourn forever in the Land of Infinite Fun?), leaving the Culture
or a Culture-like entity as the only Involved with machines of quite such
godlike intelligence. (This argument is semi-bogus, since you could just as
well have Minds of equivalent power that enjoy torturing humans sufficiently
to stay Involved. But that would be a very different universe, wouldn't it?
Banks wanted to write about a utopia, not a dystopia. Anyway, Harlan Ellison
already did the other thing with "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".)
3. Minds have the option of going Eccentric or taking a Sabbatical at almost
any time. And Eccentric ships like Grey Area (a.k.a. "Meatfucker") seem to
consider their personal hobbies a much higher priority than serving humans.
With the excess productive capacity of the Culture, even a large fraction of
Minds could be engaged in pursuits irrelevant to humans without making a
noticeable dent in the human quality of life.
4. Why would taking care of people be "boring and repetitive drudgework"?
People pay good money to play games involving trivial management problems,
e.g. Civilization or The Sims (frankly, I find the latter game's appeal
mystifying). People enjoy gardening, and arguably the intelligence ratio of
plant to human is similar to that between a human and a Mind. Or what about
clothing? Some humans can spend hours accessorizing themselves, and most
clothing lacks even the most basic interactive qualities. Would a ship's
Mind care less about its passengers, especially when the effort of caring is
probably less than that required to brush your teeth in the morning?
-JD
BaldiePete
The drones could not have been made from EDust because IMB only thought up
the idea for LTW !!! Remember, it's only a book - he makes it all up in his
head. When an author is writing a series of books on a fictional universe
you can't expect ideas introduced in a later book to be used as the basis
for an idea or concept in an earlier work.
The drones were around from the earliest of his SF writings and have a long
history in SF from the pre-Asimov days to the present day. He simply put his
own spin on a standard SF concept.
The most god-like thing about the Culture is that it's god is called Iain M.
Banks and within that universe he is omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnipresent.
Baldie Pete
RTR
here often, I don't have time to post as often (or as lengthy) as I'd
like.
Anyway, in response see below:
"Richard Puchalsky" <rpuch...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:2hgA5.5646$s76.4...@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> > >
> > I have to say this is a pretty interesting and unexpected viewpoint.
> > I've always thought that Banks did a rather good job of trying hard
> > *not* to anthropomorphize the drones by making them essentially
> > featureless 'cases' of vaguely cubic shape, that other than some
> > occasional surface decoration (gloss/pattern/material) is
essentially
> > just a minimally functional 'vessel' for the stuff inside. The use
of
> > maniple fields and colored aura fields as physical and emotional
> > interfaces are (IMO) hardly deific, so much as simply pragmatic.
>
> Yes, it pragmatically works. It's not the only idea that would work,
> though. For instance, Banks introduces the concept of EDust in LTW.
The
> drones could have been made out of that, and they would be
ground-based
> shapeshifters. Or why really bother with matter at all? They could
have all
> their working parts in hyperspace. Or they could have limbs but not
> anything close to a human or animal form. After all, there is no
extension
> of modern physics that says that it *has* to be possible in theory to
build
> a machine that can float in the air and create limbs out of fields as
> needed.
>
Sure, drones could have been made of something more malleable (Edust,
nanotech clouds, space-time twisted into apparent matter/structure [see
some of Greg Bear's works re: Bell continuum], whatever). Would that
make them more or less 'deific' or supernatural, being recongifurable
clouds of matter? I'd say neither; any 'deific' aspect assumed simply
because they have a less solid shape would be our own preconceptions
from societies steeped in ghost mythology. The Culture has no such
backing in any recent enough time that it still colors their popular or
subconscious mental landscape (although they are doubtless aware of it
from their Contact with other cultures and societies). I really don't
see how making something look like a shiny *suitcase* for pete's sake
makes it in any way associable to any anthropo- or angelopromorphistic
(??<grin>) shape. There is of course the argument that the invisible
'limbs' created by maniple fields and their floating nature seems
'magical', but what's the old gem that "any sufficiently advanced
technology appears magical..."? I simply don't see how this adds any
weight to your argument that they are created to have godlike overtones,
with the exception that vast power and capability is always considered
'superior' to a mortal, limited unit being.
> > From a human standpoint wouldn't it make more senses to have a more
> > anthropomorphic drone shape, rather like the Mind avatars tend to
take
> > to deal with humans? I think the drones' distinct choice to NOT be
> > viewed as such is a symbol of their essential other-ness and
distinction
> > as their own beings on a par with -- not in any way, even
> > *historically* -- classifiable as on equivalent status with
> > (physically), servants of, or protectors of humans. (Except by
personal
> > choice or by SC working assignments, of course.)
>
> They aren't of equivalent status to humans, they are superior, in
abilities
> as least. Yet when we see them they are always slowed down to the
rythyms
> of human society. Psychologically, they occupy a certain mental
archetype.
> And if that last sentence makes any sense, I'm lucky. :-)
They are superior in SOME abilities, perhaps, but not in others, and in
any event superiority does not automatically connotate godlike
implications on the part of the author, I think. (I will never, ever be
able to physically do what the Olympic atheletes have been doing the
last couple weeks in Sydney. Does that mean they are to be looked up to
as gods, or as avatars of the best *my species* can be?) Aren't most
drones considered "1.0" class in terms of a mentality rating? Sure they
can calculate way better than any human, but so can an idiot savant and
I daresay they aren't superior to most of us "normal" humans.
Physically? They can move their bodies around with more ability than a
human walking/running/climbing, but those are just tools...a human with
an AG harness slaved to a neural lace could do the same thing; just
because a drone body was *built* for that capability doesn't make it
*superior* (Banks did say that waves of cyborg fashion had passed thru
the Culture, so its possible at times there were humans configured to
the same kind of physical capabilities. What of it? Were they less
human and now more angelic?
The main difference I see is that for the drone community, that knows
each individual 'body' is a 'made' thing, it seems far more acceptable
to modify your body to have certain minimal physical capabilities. Who
among us wouldn't choose to walk rather than roll around in a
wheelchair? Although the technology exists to outfit or modify the
biological tissue of a human to do many of the same things (or to
incorporate interfaced components for the same purpose) most simple
choose not to do so. I do think that makes them the ultimate
hedonists -- to choose to need to defecate when you could be modified
not to have to bother seems to imply you get some enjoyment out of it,
or at least don't care. Why else choose to stick with a certain
physical and capability level: peer pressure? because they can be
'served' instead? The latter is probably a strong factor, but most
'service' is by slaved/dumb trays, drones, and remotes, not the 1.0
equivalent ones.
You want a direct religious image: what about the human on Tier
specifically modified to have Angel wings...was he a political or social
statement, or a fashion statement? I think the latter. (And yes, he is
not Culture but Tierian, I merely point him out as a more directly
supportable 'religious image' although I don't believe that was the
intent in his description any more than for that of the drones.)
As for drone's superior senses, only those designed for SC really have
extensive sensory (and weaponry) components...remember the drone
'stripped of his higher capabilities' in PoG as he left SC? Humans with
neural laces can have the same direct-communication capability with a
Mind or other drones as drones do with Minds or one another. (LTW, pg.
217) Speed differences may exist, but so what...do you care how fast I
thought this up or typed it? No. You can simply wait until the message
is finished to choose to process it, doing something else in the
meantime.
It is simply internally inconsistent to think that drones are so vastly
superior to humans that we are as insects (or worshippers) to them, and
yet so many drones quite clearly *enjoy the company* of certain people!
Examples abound in PoG, UoW, Excession, etc. I may enjoy spending time
with and even sometimes talking to my dog, but that doesn't even begin
to compare to my expecting equal discourse with him, and with a few
exceptions of drones with superiority complexes (which are quite
possible in humans as well) drones are portrayed (to my reading) to
generally enjoy the company of humans as co-citizens, not pets.
>
> Why are the Minds always stepping and fetching for people, showing
them how
> to use automatic drink dispensers and the like? Surely they could
automate
> all that, and while it's possible that they could do it with a small
portion
> of their mental capacity, why would they want to? No human that I
know
> really likes boring and repetitive drudgework, even a little of it.
Answer:
> because that makes the Minds godlike parent figures that are always
watching
> over their human charges.
The "Minds", in the sense of the actual part of the mind which does
higher thinking, does *not* step and fetch for people, any more than I
have to concentrate to move digested food through my bowels!
Non-sentient machinery does the majority of the domestic work (even the
'house minds' in residences are indicated as being machines that can
converse quite convincingly to humans, but "even other drones don't
pretent they're sentient" (paraphrased from LTW...can't find the page at
the moment). The Hub mind overlooks a set of suboperations which do all
this for it, or if necessary delegates reduced mind-states of itself
housed in avatars to give a more personal touch. If you look at the
debate between Hub and Ziller he specifically states that all of what
Ziller (and you) considers drudge-work is no more effort to him than the
blink of an eye, and not even an annoying blink of an eye at that. If
you could -- with no effort of your own -- make someone else's life
easier, wouldn't you do so? Does that make you a servant, or merely a
nice guy? (Notice I don't claim it makes you altruistic or enviably
self-sacrificing...if it cost you nothing to do it, then it also doesn't
equate to a strongly positive mental trait.) Don't forget, for whatever
reason, the Hub *was* once a Mind in a warship, which *chose* to manage
an Orbital. Does that sound like the act of a servant, or a god? No,
more like someone who had the opportunity to pick his desired employment
and did so, for whatever motivations (potential spoilers going into more
history of Hub so I'll avoid it). What you (and Ziller) see as a
'sacrifice' to the convenience of an authorial slant towards some
godlike or parental duty is simply something done almost in passing,
because they can. I guess we could argue all day that this ease of
effort is evidence they were originally designed for such work, or
'meant' for such work, but that doesn't make it any more godlike or
maternal.
In fact, Minds have been quite often shown to *use* people as well,
generally for their own good, but always to further their own ends.
(Best example: Gurgeh.) Is that the act of a parent or a god that wants
only the best for its charges? The 'cruelty for their own good' part
might fit, but using them as tools definitely does not. If a Mind in SC
thought it could do as good a job in a given intervention by sending a
human-shaped avatar instead of a human agent, wouldn't it do so? But
they have time and again calculated that a specific human is the 'right'
choice to send, which again reinforces the implication that (a) humans
do have a value in the Culture, and embody some capabilities which are
simply not present in drones or Minds, and (b) the Mind is not a loving
God but a supremely powerful head-of-state, uber-manager, or whatever.
>
> > I've also thought that I detect a fairly broad streak of
anti-'Religion'
> > sentiment in Banks' works. Which is not to say a lack of some form
of
> > spirituality (although I dread using that word with all its
> > mealy-mouthed crystal-tuning and past-life-channelling new-age
> > connotations) so much as lack of belief in any organized religion
being
> > actually *based* on anything close to the truth.
>
> Oh yes, you're right. Banks formally stated that he wrote as an
atheist,
> and every one of his books either shows religion as evil, mocks it, or
> treats it as a mental disorder. He is definately not Judeo-Christian.
But
> so what? Not all religion is Judeo-Christian, and we're talking about
a
> religious tone in the authorial voice, which seems to be there whether
Banks
> intended it or not.
I think I said much the same thing in my later paragraphs which have
been snipped, to the effect that Banks does seem to populate his novels
with some form of 'higher symmetry,' but that still doesn't mean the
Minds and drones are representatives of this overall concept. Regarding
the religious tone: is the tone in the authorial voice, or in your
ears? You admit he writes as an Atheist, has been quoted to say the
same, yet seem to be arguing [sorry if I'm incorrectly putting words in
your mouth] 'we must interpret the portrayal of the Minds as some sort
of deific representation." I'd say you're contradicting yourself. Note
I'm not arguing that you can find merit in the viewpoint that the minds
can be SEEN as deific, I'm arguing that there are also (to my opinion)
plenty of apparent cues to say they should *NOT* be seen in that
fashion.
I was brought up with a certain level of religious tradition and
education, so I'm familiar with all the obvious trappings, at least in
the Western religions. And it seems to *my* interpretation that Banks
worked very hard to avoid the most obviously associable 'religious'
connotations in his choice of description for the physical construction
and the behavior of the drones and the Minds. It could certainly be
argued that my own cynicism or atheism leads me to note the apparent
'absence' of these cues more than the 'presence' of others, but that's
what makes an opinion personal, and any literary critique subjective. :)
>
> Note : we've been through a whole round of people saying that the
Minds
> can't be Gods because they aren't omnipotent, omniscient, and
transcendent.
> Let's not go through that again; those definitions only apply to the
God of
> Christianity, and are not present in other religious systems.
>
Agreed. That was never my argument against the deification of Minds
anyway.
Thanks for an interesting discussion. Sorry I rambled on so long, and I
hope I stayed (semi) coherent.
Regards,
RTR
RTR
association (to management/"real-time-strategy" games) myself, but it
voices a part of what I was trying to express as well.
Wasn't there even a quote somewhere to the effect that in Mind society
the 'quality of population' you attracted was a kind of social status
issue among them? (I think in reference to the Mind sent to watch the
Sleeper Service?)
Thank you!
Regards,
RTR
"JD, Etc." <jade...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:39d55eb3....@netnews.att.net...
RTR
See (a few) responses below.
RTR
"Anna Feruglio Dal Dan" <ada...@libero.attentioncutmeout.it> wrote in
message news:1ehm4hf.mrvnm9qoehqiN@[151.15.185.216]...
> RTR <remskirt@if_yer_a_spammer_no_one_is_home.com> wrote:
>
> > I've also thought that I detect a fairly broad streak of
anti-'Religion'
> > sentiment in Banks' works. Which is not to say a lack of some form
of
> > spirituality (although I dread using that word with all its
> > mealy-mouthed crystal-tuning and past-life-channelling new-age
> > connotations)
>
> Nothing wrong with taking back words appropriated by others. :-)
Thanks. I think one of the major pitfalls of American society is the
ease with which a certain word or phrase can be automatically associated
with a particular sub-sector of the society. I'm sure there are other
examples ("liberal" or "conservative" and their automatic associations
with "Democrats" and "Republicans" for one) but I'm too tired from
typing elsewhere to really go into more depth. Besides I'd probably
just end up re-starting the PoG "language influences mental processes"
debate. <grin>
>
> (Hope that doesn't
> > qualify as a spoiler.) Banks seems to believe in some greater
symmetry
> > of some kind (the universe tending to generate human-like forms as
some
> > sort of galactic physiochemical 'rule',
>
> There are plenty non-human forms, I guess they are indeed the norm.
The
> Idirans are perhaps the most human-like, but the Homomdan arent's, and
> neither are the Affront, the Chelgrians, or the airshpere fauna.
>
I think it was in UoW, Zak asked why there were so many human-formed
populations that appeared to evolve independently, and there was some
(perhaps even joking) reference to the abundance of alcohol in
interstellar clouds and "the Galaxy's food speaking back to itself"??
> the feeling of
> > 'finding one's place' and predestination that intertwine the
> > protagonist's personal journey in Crow Road [although it does not
take
> > him in the direction *he* might have hoped/wished for earlier on in
the
> > work],
>
> Actually, the protagonist in Crow Road IMHO manages, in the end, to
> become an adult precisely because he stops looking for meaning,
purpose
> and destiny in life, and accepts it for the accidental, random thing
> that it is. I have always taken this as the message of the book.
But ironically enough just when he gives up looking for that 'higher
purpose', he seems to achieve it, becoming a pivotal member of the
family in exactly the way predicted by his (aunt? great-aunt? don't
remember, been too long) earlier in the work, although none of his
childhood attributes and behaviors seemed to merit her prediction. Kind
of a catch-22...fate will have its own way, but only when you stop
believing in fate... <grin>
>
> Whit's decision to believe that *something* of her and her
> > 'cult's' past is somehow based on divinity), it has almost never
taken
> > on any sort of standard Judeo-Christian cant in my readings.
>
> Yeah, Whit. I had almost managed to forget that. :-(
Yeah, I found her final decision a bit disturbing. It seemed to me that
she'd grown so much through her ordeal and discoveries that her final
decision was a discredit to her apparent intelligence. But then again
I'm notably non-religious, so that disappointment may be my own
preconceptions and not due to a lack of internal consistency. I should
give it a re-read, but there's too much new stuff coming out right now.
Richard Puchalsky
>
> >Why are the Minds always stepping and fetching for people, showing them
how
> >to use automatic drink dispensers and the like? Surely they could
automate
> >all that, and while it's possible that they could do it with a small
portion
> >of their mental capacity, why would they want to? No human that I know
> >really likes boring and repetitive drudgework, even a little of it.
Answer:
> >because that makes the Minds godlike parent figures that are always
watching
> >over their human charges.
>
> Several possible responses to this:
>
> 1. Banks is undoubtedly conscious of the religious qualities of the Minds,
as
> the books repeatedly mention that the Minds appear to lesser civilizations
as
> scarcely less than gods. Part of the fun of writing the books doubtless
> included the pleasure of inventing a pantheon after his own tastes.
From an interview with Radical Scotland something-or-other paper:
" JR : There is a strong link between the horrific and the fantastic, and
fantasy - particularly in the form of dreams - comes into your books an
awful lot, especially in Canal Dreams. The heroine Hisako Onada, has dreams
which are extremely vivid and bloody even before the real violence starts.
Do you use fantasy as an allegory of reality or do you just let loose a very
vivid imagination?
IB : Well, I suppose a bit of both. I find I have self-imposed restrictions
about writing fantasy involving the supernatural magic, ghosts and ghoulies
and so on. The only way around that is to use dreams, or a science fiction
setting, or a coma as used in The Bridge. I use fantasy as the nuts and
bolts of my writing to show the grotesque and fantastic aspects of the human
psyche, but in the end my writing comes down to a secular. humanist
framework, certainly a materialist one. "
My point is that if Banks is using "fantasy as the nuts and bolts of his
writing" -- religious fantasy, or feeling as I prefer to say, in this
case -- then it doesn't really matter so much that he creates an ad hoc
secular humanist explanation for it. The best way to understand the
*feelings* involved -- the elements of the human psyche that Banks is
referring to -- is to say things like "the Minds are God figures".
I'll note that any critical reading of TWO that doesn't include its
folkloric aspects would be severely lacking, I think. Banks made some
comments in another interview, reported here, about not being influenced by
Scottish folklore or something like not. But if you consider fantasy as
part of the nuts and bolts of his writing; the frameworks of the old stories
still exist under their new materialist trappings, and Banks is certainly
seems to be influenced by them whether he chooses to find
advanced-technology-as-magic explanations for them in the Culture books or
not.
Your points 2-4 are good, and constitute a counterargument to the idea that
Minds would be bored looking after people and their interactions with drink
dispensers. But they are an explanation for something which will always, to
me, seem rather unlikely. Since one can find an explanation for anything in
a work of fiction, I think it's better to ask why it had to be that way in
the first place.
Richard Puchalsky
> The drones could not have been made from EDust because IMB only thought up
> the idea for LTW !!! Remember, it's only a book - he makes it all up in
his
> head. When an author is writing a series of books on a fictional universe
> you can't expect ideas introduced in a later book to be used as the basis
> for an idea or concept in an earlier work.
I was trying to show that there were other possible ways for the drones to
be configured, even given the presuppositions of Banks' universe. All to
often SF readers seem to think that what SF writers do is create "a
universe" and simply extrapolate it forward from there. I think that is
nonsense, frankly, there are always many different possible paths, and the
one chosen by an author depends on what kind of story they want to write.
In this case, if Banks had wanted to give his drones a more elemental,
dangerous feel rather than a more guardian spirit one, he would have come up
with the idea of Edust or something like it from the start and written the
drones that way. In which case I might be telling people that Banks could
have written the drones as featureless suitcaselike floating things, using
Banks' posited field technology, and people might be telling me that Banks
only thought of that idea later. The genius of Banks' treatment of drones is
the feeling which they create, not the technical details that justify that
feeling within a materialist framework.
Richard Puchalsky
> Sure, drones could have been made of something more malleable (Edust,
> nanotech clouds, space-time twisted into apparent matter/structure [see
> some of Greg Bear's works re: Bell continuum], whatever). Would that
> make them more or less 'deific' or supernatural, being recongifurable
> clouds of matter? I'd say neither; any 'deific' aspect assumed simply
> because they have a less solid shape would be our own preconceptions
> from societies steeped in ghost mythology.
Banks wrote the books for our society, not theirs. So, like any good
writier, he used our own preconceptions to create an effect.
> The Culture has no such
> backing in any recent enough time that it still colors their popular or
> subconscious mental landscape (although they are doubtless aware of it
> from their Contact with other cultures and societies). I really don't
> see how making something look like a shiny *suitcase* for pete's sake
> makes it in any way associable to any anthropo- or angelopromorphistic
> (??<grin>) shape.
It's a bit sarcastic, certainly, exactly as I'd expect from Banks. It's
certainly not anthropomorphic; having angels be such in rather a failure of
imagination IMO. I guy named Heretic, who wrote about this theory before I
did, said that he beleives in a sarcastic God and that he thought that Banks
did too. Certainly I myself would be much more comfortable with the idea
of a guardian spirit with a sense of humor.
> You want a direct religious image: what about the human on Tier
> specifically modified to have Angel wings...was he a political or social
> statement, or a fashion statement?
He was a joke by Banks, who gave this stereotypically angelic figure the
mind of a human mainly interested in where the next party was. Didn't you
think it was funny when he thinks about telling a random woman he meets that
he's a spy just so he could try to impress her? Banks is telling us how he
feels about stereotypical angels.