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peter_xxx's review against another edition
2.0
A short story collection by Ian M. Banks. Two of the stories are part of his culture series and those where the best parts here. in one story he tried to channel Douglas Adams. I felt the stories were angrier then his novels. And because they were mostly angry about current events and politics they also feel quite outdated.
The main novella about the culture visiting earth was interesting although the messages were laid out a bit to obviously.
Short stories are not my cup of tea most of the time and Ian M Banks is not the author that will change that. The messages and ideas in this collection of stories, I'd prefer to receive in the form of a punkrock record.
The main novella about the culture visiting earth was interesting although the messages were laid out a bit to obviously.
Short stories are not my cup of tea most of the time and Ian M Banks is not the author that will change that. The messages and ideas in this collection of stories, I'd prefer to receive in the form of a punkrock record.
sashkello's review against another edition
2.0
A rather hectic collection of short stories, most of which might just as well do without any references to Culture. Some feel like random chapters from other books or starts of some longer works which were never finished. Few have full story arc, but rather feel like ideas haphazardly written down on the margins of Culture novels.
Road of Skulls - rather engaging start and great atmosphere, but abruptly ends before you really get into it, feels like exercise in creative writing rather than a finished story.
2.5/5
A Gift from the Culture - again, too short and without much substance. Dialogues and character's inner struggles are tedious and feel forced.
2/5
Odd Attachment - a very short joke story about a sentient plant... Quite an obvious idea which I felt like I've seen somewhere before, and honestly it didn't amuse me.
1/5
Descendant - this one is probably the only story I really enjoyed. A Culture man in a suit is trying to find his way through a lifeless desert back to the base. That's pretty much it, the simplest idea out of all the stories, and yet it worked. Felt like a discarded flashback chapter from "Use Of Weapons".
4/5
Cleaning Up - another humorous story about an alien disposal ship flinging rubbish at Earth instead of Sun. This one is mildly amusing, with bits of absurdist humor sprinkled around. But, I felt like the story was just going nowhere beyond the initial idea itself...
3/5
Piece - a non-sci-fi piece. Going on and on about religious close-mindedness. Was a bit hard to read, nothing deep or new here. Very basic idea, spread over not so many pages, and yet felt too long. Twist reminds of some of O Henry's worst works.
1/5
The State Of The Art - this one takes up the bulk of space in the collection, being by far the longest story (feels like a short novel). Culture comes across the 70's Earth and starts exploring in order to decide how to proceed. Sma (Use Of Weapons) is the main narrator, but honestly the character didn't feel like her at all and could have been anyone. Writing style here is extremely inconsistent, switching from rather nice dreamy prose channeling the atmosphere of different cities in the 70's to extremely tedious prolonged monologues and dialogues which reiterate same points about Culture and human society morals, over and over, and go nowhere. There is a really dragged-out side-story about a bored character who has to stay on-board, trying to annoy everyone, which is just overwhelmingly dull and absolutely unnecessary. The story kind of picks up towards the end, and the final is decent, even though not unexpected...
2.5/5
Scratch - I guess this is some kind of literary experiment, maybe I'm not smart enough to understand what this is... Mostly just a jumble of half-sentences and repeating phrases. It's split into little portions, only one of which has normal sentence structure, but it doesn't really help. I have no idea what this all means, maybe it's just my lack of intellect...
1/5
Road of Skulls - rather engaging start and great atmosphere, but abruptly ends before you really get into it, feels like exercise in creative writing rather than a finished story.
2.5/5
A Gift from the Culture - again, too short and without much substance. Dialogues and character's inner struggles are tedious and feel forced.
2/5
Odd Attachment - a very short joke story about a sentient plant... Quite an obvious idea which I felt like I've seen somewhere before, and honestly it didn't amuse me.
1/5
Descendant - this one is probably the only story I really enjoyed. A Culture man in a suit is trying to find his way through a lifeless desert back to the base. That's pretty much it, the simplest idea out of all the stories, and yet it worked. Felt like a discarded flashback chapter from "Use Of Weapons".
4/5
Cleaning Up - another humorous story about an alien disposal ship flinging rubbish at Earth instead of Sun. This one is mildly amusing, with bits of absurdist humor sprinkled around. But, I felt like the story was just going nowhere beyond the initial idea itself...
3/5
Piece - a non-sci-fi piece. Going on and on about religious close-mindedness. Was a bit hard to read, nothing deep or new here. Very basic idea, spread over not so many pages, and yet felt too long. Twist reminds of some of O Henry's worst works.
1/5
The State Of The Art - this one takes up the bulk of space in the collection, being by far the longest story (feels like a short novel). Culture comes across the 70's Earth and starts exploring in order to decide how to proceed. Sma (Use Of Weapons) is the main narrator, but honestly the character didn't feel like her at all and could have been anyone. Writing style here is extremely inconsistent, switching from rather nice dreamy prose channeling the atmosphere of different cities in the 70's to extremely tedious prolonged monologues and dialogues which reiterate same points about Culture and human society morals, over and over, and go nowhere. There is a really dragged-out side-story about a bored character who has to stay on-board, trying to annoy everyone, which is just overwhelmingly dull and absolutely unnecessary. The story kind of picks up towards the end, and the final is decent, even though not unexpected...
2.5/5
Scratch - I guess this is some kind of literary experiment, maybe I'm not smart enough to understand what this is... Mostly just a jumble of half-sentences and repeating phrases. It's split into little portions, only one of which has normal sentence structure, but it doesn't really help. I have no idea what this all means, maybe it's just my lack of intellect...
1/5
ldasoqi's review against another edition
3.0
A nice little break from the mainline stories. This was a quick and light read, I thought that each short story was interesting and worth the time it took to finish. My favorite three:
1. The State of the Art- The titular novella, it's a neat little easter egg of a story. I can understand the urge to pull the Earth into the Culture Universe but at the same not wanting to impact the tone/canon in a Novel sized tale. I can see a desire for a little more Culture/Contact action, but I really felt gratified by how much Earth is featured, illustrated, and reflected upon. This is a tight story with a thoughtful take on determinism and cultural relativity. I think it's worth it to read the collection just for this story. Nice to get more Sma and Skaffen Amiskaw (Iain Banks really knows what the readers want).
2. Descendant - This is how you write a horror story in 6 pages or less. The prose reminded me of Cormack McCarthy. This is one of the shorter stories in the novel, but I thought it was a head above the rest.
3. Cleaning Up - The most meta story of the bunch, there's even a nod to the Satanic Verses. A foreshadowed ending buried within the agnst and commentary. I thought this the most direct and touching story, at least for me.
1. The State of the Art- The titular novella, it's a neat little easter egg of a story. I can understand the urge to pull the Earth into the Culture Universe but at the same not wanting to impact the tone/canon in a Novel sized tale. I can see a desire for a little more Culture/Contact action, but I really felt gratified by how much Earth is featured, illustrated, and reflected upon. This is a tight story with a thoughtful take on determinism and cultural relativity. I think it's worth it to read the collection just for this story. Nice to get more Sma and Skaffen Amiskaw (Iain Banks really knows what the readers want).
2. Descendant - This is how you write a horror story in 6 pages or less. The prose reminded me of Cormack McCarthy. This is one of the shorter stories in the novel, but I thought it was a head above the rest.
3. Cleaning Up - The most meta story of the bunch, there's even a nod to the Satanic Verses. A foreshadowed ending buried within the agnst and commentary. I thought this the most direct and touching story, at least for me.
tombomp's review against another edition
2.0
Just generally not very good writing, to me at least.
Short stories:
Road of Skulls: short and pretty flimsy, only the very ending is much interesting.
A Gift from the Culture: pretty decent. Has a kind of interesting premise but it's hard to sympathise with someone who leaves utopia in general given it's far beyond our own experience
Odd Attachment: vaguely amusing, pretty gross, a little confusing, eh
Descendant: best story of the book, about a human and their sentient spacesuit. Not perfect but it's interesting with a well done ending and a pretty unusual perspective.
Cleaning Up: Reminds me of some 50s/60s pulp story - some humour that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, cold war theme, generic giant bad corporation. It's ok but written kind of confusingly and not that interesting
Piece: Rolled my eyes hard at the end. Pretty incoherent with some bad poetry stuck in for some reason. Neither a clear "point" or a decent plot or mood or setting or anything.
Scratch: "experimental" writing that's like an expression of anger over the Thatcher era and politics/economy in general. Alright over it's pretty hard to read and you get the point pretty quick (luckily it's short)
The main novella (State of the Art) itself kind of sucks because it's from the perspective of the Culture looking at Earth and it just feels... wrong. It sort of does an "Earth is unique" thing and tries to justify why we haven't been contacted (which is always a bad idea for a sci-fi thing to do imo) but it's just not convincing. And a lot of the speeches and stuff that go on don't really make sense - they don't fit with what you'd expect from the culture and they just seem silly. I dunno. It felt like another expression of anger but what's cathartic to one person generally isn't cathartic to another. Oh well
Short stories:
Road of Skulls: short and pretty flimsy, only the very ending is much interesting.
A Gift from the Culture: pretty decent. Has a kind of interesting premise but it's hard to sympathise with someone who leaves utopia in general given it's far beyond our own experience
Odd Attachment: vaguely amusing, pretty gross, a little confusing, eh
Descendant: best story of the book, about a human and their sentient spacesuit. Not perfect but it's interesting with a well done ending and a pretty unusual perspective.
Cleaning Up: Reminds me of some 50s/60s pulp story - some humour that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, cold war theme, generic giant bad corporation. It's ok but written kind of confusingly and not that interesting
Piece: Rolled my eyes hard at the end. Pretty incoherent with some bad poetry stuck in for some reason. Neither a clear "point" or a decent plot or mood or setting or anything.
Scratch: "experimental" writing that's like an expression of anger over the Thatcher era and politics/economy in general. Alright over it's pretty hard to read and you get the point pretty quick (luckily it's short)
The main novella (State of the Art) itself kind of sucks because it's from the perspective of the Culture looking at Earth and it just feels... wrong. It sort of does an "Earth is unique" thing and tries to justify why we haven't been contacted (which is always a bad idea for a sci-fi thing to do imo) but it's just not convincing. And a lot of the speeches and stuff that go on don't really make sense - they don't fit with what you'd expect from the culture and they just seem silly. I dunno. It felt like another expression of anger but what's cathartic to one person generally isn't cathartic to another. Oh well
mgomes's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
mjfmjfmjf's review against another edition
2.0
I don't understand why anyone would like this, though it is certainly all not equally bad. The final two bits are unreadable. Okay that's somewhat unfair - Scratch is random drivel, where A Few Notes on the Culture is mostly just uninteresting. In general the short stories were okay but kind of boring. Where the novella was also just kind of boring. Some of the ideas are at least somewhat interesting but they are not presented in an interesting manner. I should give up. I probably won't.
ellenisntcool's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I'll admit, I picked this up not knowing State of the Art was book 4 of a series so I was *very* confused as I never read anything from this author before, so I didn't finish that one. But I'll rate and write a very short review for each one:
•
Road of Skulls 2/5 - just a bit meh if I'm honest.
A gift from the Culture 4/5 - this was fascinating and my second favourite!
Odd Attachment 2/5 - not really memorable, I wouldn't be able to tell you what was going on.
Descendant 5/5 - absolute favorite, keeping the book just for this and the second short story, but this one hit harder than I expected. Read it if you can.
Cleaning up 1/5 - wtf was this
Piece 2/5 - That was... something. Best part was the ending but wasn't sure if the author was projecting his thoughts of religion.
The State of the Art 1/5 - DNF
Scratch 1/5 - I'm not going to pretend I understood what was going on
•
Road of Skulls 2/5 - just a bit meh if I'm honest.
A gift from the Culture 4/5 - this was fascinating and my second favourite!
Odd Attachment 2/5 - not really memorable, I wouldn't be able to tell you what was going on.
Descendant 5/5 - absolute favorite, keeping the book just for this and the second short story, but this one hit harder than I expected. Read it if you can.
Cleaning up 1/5 - wtf was this
Piece 2/5 - That was... something. Best part was the ending but wasn't sure if the author was projecting his thoughts of religion.
The State of the Art 1/5 - DNF
Scratch 1/5 - I'm not going to pretend I understood what was going on