Anyone here read any Iain M Banks Sci Fi?

great inspiration for galactic smashing

http://www.iainbanks.net/
from GalCiv2 Forums
Anyone here read any Iain M Banks Sci Fi?

There are some fantastic books amongst his sci-fi collection, namely any book that is focused around his culture universe. The concepts and Idea's are off the chart cool, and I think those of you who dig the scale of what Gal Civ 2 represents, would really appreciate some of the stories in these books.

If the Gal Civ 2 developers happent to chance upon this post, I wouldn't mind knowing if any of those guys have read any Banks' books and whether they draw any of thier inspiration from these books.

So go forth and read!

My suggestions:

Get started with Consider Phlebas, and if you enjoy that go on and read the whole series, if you would rather do things unconventionally then the coolest book (IMO) if his series, would be excession, a book all about a conspiracy set-up by the super-computers which control these epic sized ships...very cool stuff.

Anyways check it out, I'm pretty positive there will be some Banks fans amongst u peoples here...

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, thanks for the tip. I am in the market for a new scifi series to get into.
I have been re-reading some of the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, another good series.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heh. One of the civilizations I built, the Concordiat, was thoroughly based on the Culture. Goody goody race with advanced technology who tried to play nice with everyone, but who also wasn't afraid to take the gloves off if war began. Heck, I even gave my ships Culture-esque names (and there is ALWAYS a ship named 'Killing Time'. The survey ship is usually named 'Grey Area'). Love love LOVE his books, especially Excession.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ender series by Orson Scott Card

Great series but too short. I personally liked the Honor series by Weber. Also give the Amber series (or anything else) from Zalazney a try. And the John Carter from Mars series by Edgar Rice Borroughs (the guy that wrote Tarzan). I probably have a collection of close to 2000 titles but most are in boxes and I haven't seen them in years.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The best way to enjoy the Amber series is to find 'The Great Book of Amber', the complete compiled collection of all 10 books.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have read the Alegbraist by him and I really liked it altough the end was kinda dissapointing. I guess I have to read the other culture books. Any suggestion where I should start?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Helliconia Trilogy

Is a science fiction series of three books by Brian Aldiss, set on the planet Helliconia. It chronicles the rise and fall of a civilization as the planet progresses through its incredibly long seasons, which occur on a scale of centuries.

The trilogy consists of the books Helliconia Spring (published 1982), Helliconia Summer (1983) and Helliconia Winter (1985). [Source Wikipedia]

Liked the scale of things.  
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I thought every gamer would have Iain M Banks Player of Games at the top of their favlist. This is the guy who had to cut up his Civ CD so he would get his next book written.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
LOL, yep, Stardock should approach Banks about a Culture based game, it would be awesome.

Steelmeister - I suggest you start with Consider Phlebas and go from there, Phlebas is at the beginning of the culture, before it had complete galaxy domination, pretty awesome stuff.

I have had thoughts about kicking off a Gla Civ game with a culture based crew, but am too busy clocking up metaverse points ATM (wanna crack the top 100...)
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have a boss who is a big Banks fan. Apparently he heard an interview where he can somehow crank out these books in 6 weeks (an almost supernatural feat considering how imaginative and captivating they are). Then he spends the rest of the year partying and regenerating his creative juices -

Anyway, that is what I heard. Not sure if its true.


Dano

PS - One of my favourite fleet/empire books is the strangely titled "In Death Ground", (Its a Sun Tzu quote) by David Weber and someone else I think. Great stuff, though the sequel "The Shiva Option" was a snooze fest. A tragic disappointment.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh, we're doing book recommendations.

Space battles, and several alien races? The Dread Empire's Fall trilogy by Walter Jon Williams is for you! I recently finished the series, and enjoyed it quite a bit:

Dread Empire's Fall: The Praxis
Dread Empire's Fall: The Sundering
Dread Empire's Fall: Conventions of War
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanx Justin I will check those out.

Yup Banks can push out those Skiffy novels pretty fast, although I don't know if it is quite 6 weeks, perhaps with some of his earlier books, but these days it seems to take him a good 2-3 months per book, but yes he certainly does tend to spend the rest of the year taking it easy and having fun...oh the life!
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Some of this stuff here looks really interesting I'll have to check it out. For sci-fi reading I would have to recommend anything by Louise Lawrence. Especially Children of the Dust, Calling B for Butterfly, and my personal favorite, Keeper of the Universe. All three are outstanding.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yup Banks can push out those Skiffy novels pretty fast, although I don't know if it is quite 6 weeks, perhaps with some of his earlier books, but these days it seems to take him a good 2-3 months per book



Am I missing something?! I love Iain M Banks books, and to a lesser extent Iain Banks books (!), but there seems to be an age between releases.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nope you aren't missing anything, What Dano13 was saying was that Iain normally sits down and writes a novel from go to woah in about 3 months and then normally takes the otehr 9-12 months off before he sits down to write anotehr book.

I believe his current contracts require hime to publish a book every 12-18 months, however he missed his last deadline as he was playing 2 much Civ 4, or something to that effect.

Ironically his latest Fiction is centered around a family who had a strategy boardgame converted to a computer game...and all of the intriuge that one could possibly muster from a scenario like that, with the typical Banks madness.

I think 2003 was his last Fiction (Dead Air) and 2005 was his last Sci-Fi (The Algebraist).

Gee, out

(Go the Space Orcas)
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I Think "The Player Of Games" by Mr Banks is fantastic, one of my favorite books.

His non sci-fi books are also very good if a little disturbing sometimes  
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Alot of Banks' writing can be fairly distrubing from time to time!

Yep Player of Games is great, he certainly comes across as a bit of a gamer geek kinda guys.

'one of us' as it were, and those of you who deny being gamer geeks but are trawling a forum dedicated to an awesome PC game need to have a reality check LOL

Nothing wrong with being a gamer geek! U can still drive a sportscar and play sport blah, blah, blah!

Anyway Banks is rad, if u haven't read any go out and get some, it's great stuff!
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hello!

I'm new to this forum. I don't live in an officially English speaking country, so I cannot get Helliconia Spring too easily. We had a translation task, or rather, we were shown quite a poor translation of two pages of the above mentioned book. I was wondering if anyone could help me out. If anyone has the book and could make a digital picture or scan it or something, I would appreciate it. If so, I would give further information on which two pages I would need.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ive read most Ian M bank I've been able to get my hands on, and would say I like Against A Dark Background, Excession and Use of weapons most.

Havent read player of games though.

Ian M banks books remind me of Brian Aldiss in style, but not sure why
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Iain Banks is AMAZING, a man with taste in whisky that good can't help but write awesome fiction. My favourite so far is a pretty close tie between The Player of Games and The State of the Art, which is a really interesting book of short (mostly culture) stories, a culture ship visits current day Earth, which makes for really interesting reading And his next book will be a culture novel!

Top of my recommending list is A Canticle for Leibowitz, a brilliant post-apocalyptic novel centered around the fate of a monastic abbey striving to protect the remenants of technology from a savage world - it's full of religion, history and subplots, and just reallllly reallly awesome!

Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm I'll have to try Ian banks.

I'll have to say that Asmov's Foundation trilogy is my favorite (the original). While the trilogy is almost 50 years old and some of the ideas then are a little funky now (mini atomic wrist watches!!), it has a strong character driven plot and great overarching plot (keeping it mostly timeless). It's truely an epic Scifi if there ever was one.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm a massive fan of Iain M. Banks. Consider Phlebas, Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist are his best books, I believe.