#iain m banks

[prokopetz]

Iain M Banks: What is a weapon? What does it mean to use a weapon? Can a person be a weapon? Is there a difference between using a weapon and being a weapon? Is this difference meaningful? What kind of person would choose to be a weapon?

Also Iain M Banks: Here's a sapient starship with a scat fetish.

#media #literature #iain m banks #the culture #worldbuilding #unsanitary

[figcatlists]

Bleak and disturbing science fiction reading list

A list of science fiction novels and short story collections with dark themes and gloomy settings. The selection includes dystopias, post-apocalyptic and climate fiction, as well as unsettling sci-fi horror. See the full list on my website for more titles and links to Goodreads and Wikipedia.

#dark books #book recs #book recommendations #reading list #book list #science fiction #sci fi #grimdark #peter watts #iain m banks #alastair reynolds #paolo bacigalupi #harlan ellison

[stary-night]

Thinking about sci-fi stories as a force to advocate for better societies and critiquing modern capitalism.

Particularly with the Iain M Banks Culture series and The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

Both series present a utopian society that offers food, healthcare and education to it's residents, as well as being inclusive and welcoming of different genders and sexualities.

This is shown in contrast to other parts of the galaxy, which mirror our own world in late stage capitalism - where people are often unable to afford necessities and work themselves to death and conflicts are common because they help fund wealthy individuals/companies.

Through both books being set in the future, they are able to critique and imagine the further development of modern problems, while also being able to advocate for hope for the future through community.

It's a really cool theme I've seen in the scifi genre as a whole.

#the murderbot diaries #tmbd #iain m banks #culture series #scifi #sci-fi books #murderbot diaries #Also forgive me if my summary of the iain m banks books are inaccurate - I haven't read them for 5 years #I thought about it when seeing the description for the tmbd audio book and being like omg it IS like the Culture series #Also like - obviously the Culture series has it's problems with colonialism but the economic/queer stuff is interesting to me

[library-of-babel]

The Player of Games gives the Sign of Silence, calmly pondering his next move.

“To attain the SANCTUM REGNUM, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions - an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate.

TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENCE - such are the four words of the Magus, inscribed upon the four symbolical forms of the sphinx.” - From “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie” by Eliphas Lévi (1854).

#iain m banks #game

[thelastofthebookworms]

You'll find the other polls in my 'sf polls' tag / my pinned post. I also have a 'fantasy polls' tag and 'fairy tales' tag in my pinned post.

#polls #sf polls #science fiction #the word for world is forest #ursula k. le guin #ursula le guin #the martian #andy weir #all systems red #martha wells #foundation and empire #isaac asimov #the fall of hyperion #dan simmons #ender's shadow #orson scott card #the restaurant at the end of the universe #douglas adams #consider phlebas #iain m banks #iain banks #wool #hugh howey

[gravitasmalfunction]

Yime Nsokyi should have been at the club (derogatory)

#surface detail #the culture series #iain m banks

[maskedbeliever]

One of the charming things in The Culture series by Iain M Banks is that a few books mention that there are dedicated fan communities for just about every single ship/Mind out there. I think that’s so cute. Imagine Culture citizens getting into internet slapfights about who the best ship is.

#the culture series #iain m banks #maskedbeliever's posts

[unbizzarre]

Prince Ferbin, Choubris Holse and Flying Beasts Take Shelter From the Rain

Fanart for Ian M. Banks' Culture series. Book: Matter

Really a fantastic sci-fi series. Especially the Space Ships Ai personalities. Sadly there doesn't seem to be much fanart at all. Definitely a harder series to make fanart for though. Since a large focus of the series is about the indescribable vastness, oldness, and weirdness of the universe, most characters don't stick around long enough for you to fall in love with. Its the ideas in this series that are captivating. Much harder to draw those.

So instead I drew two characters from a rather unimportant scene in the book.

Original Sketch on Paper:

Remembering the leaves in the scene were supposed to be blue:

#scifiart #iain banks #iain m banks #culture #Culture Books #Culture Series #Culture Fanart #fanart #Prince Ferbin #choubris holse #flying Beasts #Matter #books #illlustration

[eyepool]

Wow, this came out of nowhere! I had no idea Iain Banks drew, much less that he meticulously designed all aspects of his Culture.

Banks's “The Culture” series of novels are the absolute pinnacle of wide-screen, galaxy-spanning space opera. And they’re extremely well-written, with compelling antiheroes and pitch-black satirical humor. (Banks was also a highly regarded mainstream author, and tended to alternate mainstream and SF novels.)

The Culture is a highly advanced space-faring utopia(?) — the ultimate in “fully automated luxury Communism” — where super-intelligent AIs take care of the hard stuff and humans can do basically whatever they want. But the hard stuff includes very messy realpolitik interacting with other races and galactic empires, and requires human involvement. That’s where most of the novels are set: in the Special Circumstances organization, full of messy ethical dilemmas like “we had to blow up this planet in order to save it.”

To make a very poor analogy, these novels are sort of like combining the best bits of Larry Niven, Tom Clancy and Douglas Adams. Cannot recommend them highly enough. Start with The Player of Games or Use of Weapons. (Consider Phlebas is the first, but it’s awful dark and the ending is unsatisfying.)

#iain m banks #the culture #sf #sf art

[m-accost]

#The Culture #Iain M Banks #shitpost #The Jinmoti of Bozlen Two #Consider Phlebas

[immoren]

"The vast majority of people are also born with greatly altered glands housed within their central nervous systems, usually referred to as 'drug glands'. These secrete - on command - mood- and sensory-appreciation-altering compounds into the person's bloodstream. ... An elaborate thought-code, self-administered in a trance-like state (or simply a consistent desire, even if not conscious) will lead, over the course of about a year, to what amounts to a viral change from one sex into the other. ... To us, perhaps, the idea of being able to find out what sex is like for our complimentary gender, or being able to get drunk/stoned/tripped-out or whatever just by thinking about it (and of course the Culture's drug-glands produce no unpleasant side-effects or physiological addiction) may seem like mere wish-fulfillment. And indeed it is partly wish-fulfillment, but then the fulfillment of wishes is both one of civilization's most powerful drives and arguably one of its highest functions; we wish to live longer, we wish to live more comfortably, we wish to live with less anxiety and more enjoyment, less ignorance and more knowledge than our ancestors did... but the abilities to change sex and to alter one's brain-chemistry - without resort to external technology or any form of payment - both have more serious functions within the Culture. A society in which it is so easy to change sex will rapidly find out if it is treating one gender better than the other; within the population, over time, there will gradually be greater and greater numbers of the sex it is more rewarding to be, and so pressure for change - within society rather than the individuals - will presumably therefore build up until some form of sexual equality and hence numerical parity is established. In a similar fashion, a society in which everybody is free to, and does, choose to spend the majority of their time zonked out of their brains will know that there is something significantly wrong with reality, and (one would hope) do what it can to make that reality more appealing and less - in the pejorative sense - mundane."

Iain M. Banks A Few Notes on The Culture

#iain m banks #the culture series #literature #scifi #science fiction #personal

[quasi-normalcy]

Okay, but I just remembered a novel by Iain M. Banks that I read one time where the villain had genetically engineered his penis to shoot truth serum so that he could interrogate his lovers for signs of disloyalty.

#the algebraist #iain m banks #luciferous

[thomdoesthings]

Just finished The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks.

It's a really weird feeling, reading the last book by your favourite author and knowing that this is it. There are no more. This is how the series ends. And what an ending. It's melancholy but not exactly sad and tells an amazing sci-fi story with Banks' usual artistry. A fitting, memorable swan song, and a wonderful goodbye to the Culture

#what i'm reading #iain m banks #the hydrogen sonata #the culture #trying my best not to gush because i'm emotional

[stainlesssteellocust]

“I find myself looking at Blair and hating his self-righteous, Bush-whipped ass the way I only ever hated Thatcher before. I look at Dubya and just see a sad fuck with scared eyes; a grotesquely under-qualified-for-practically-anything daddy's boy who's had to be greased into every squalid position he's ever held in his miserable existence who might finally be starting to wake up to the idea that if the most powerful nation on Earth - like, ever, dude - can put somebody like him in power, all may not be well with the world. Dubya is that worst of all things, at least at this level of power and influence; a cast-iron, 100 per cent, complete and total loser who's somehow lucked out and made it to the very top.”

-Iain Banks, Raw Spirit

#Iain banks #iain m banks #politics #george w bush #tony blair #us politics #uk politics #british politics #american politics

[thelastofthebookworms]

You'll find the other polls in my 'sf polls' tag / my pinned post. I also have a 'fantasy polls' tag and 'fairy tales' tag in my pinned post.

#polls #sf polls #science fiction #on basilisk station #david weber #a deepness in the sky #vernor vinge #the cith and the stars #arthur c. clarke #parabole of the sower #octavia e. butler #octavia butler #the wind up girl #paolo bacigalupi #uses of weapons #iain m banks #iain banks #the lathe of heaven #ursula k. le guin #ursula le guin #anathem #neal stephenson #the caves of steel #isaac asimov

[gravitasmalfunction]

#surface detail #the culture series #iain m banks