phthalo wrote:myke_deschain wrote:phthalo wrote:a la The Wasp Factory
I mean not i'm some conservative uptight hippie..
Do they come in conservative uptight form now? Whatever will they think of next..
I love Iain Banks' sci-fi, but I also find the thriller stuff to be a bit too messy.
You must have read "Complicity" Ewww, he took his head (and his readers heads) into some gnarly places when he wrote that one.
His recent non-culture SF has been weaker than his culture stuff too, (i.e. The "Algebraist" and "Transition")
I haven't been disappointed by a Culture novel yet, though certainly there are ones I like more than others. Some people don't like the Culture novels where the action takes place on a lower-tech part of the galaxy ("Inversions" and to a lesser extent "Matter" for instance) but I personally like those as well.
Favorite Culture Novels.
"Use of Weapons" & "The Player of Games" (tied for 1st place)
"Excession" (a very close second, and the origin of my screen-name. The chat-logs between the culture ship Minds are just fantastic)
"Consider Phlebus" (first Culture novel, bonus points for it's amazingly pretentious title)
"Look To Windward." (Nice novel that is primarily just about life in the Culture ,more than anything else, for Culture addicts a very enjoyable place to vacation)
Oops, what a Horrible Derailment.
I'll finish by saying that Annabelle's Alphabet was a very good example of a story that makes effective use of stylistic writing. (It's easy to bomb when going for "Style", but with this story, it was a direct hit...)
