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A review by tombomp
The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks
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