Hello World Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 The last thread is archived. I'm currently 170ish pages into Excession and liking it a lot so far. Every time I start a Culture book I immediately think this is my favorite in the series yet. Even though this one is mostly setup thus far. The only thing I really dislike is the communication in symbols and numbers. It's making me lose focus pretty badly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SerTarod Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 Hang in there. Excession was my favourite Culture story for a long time and the interplay, as confusing as it may be, between the ship Minds was and remains very entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 Excession is one of those that I'd like to read still because it has so many AI characters. Though that can be very confusing as well in Banks' world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hello World Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 Did they ever explain what anti-matter is supposed to be in this series? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Banks uses the actual definition as set out by physicists; matter that has a opposite charge from normal matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yohn Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 On 25/05/2016 at 2:39 PM, Hello World said: The last thread is archived. I'm currently 170ish pages into Excession and liking it a lot so far. Every time I start a Culture book I immediately think this is my favorite in the series yet. Even though this one is mostly setup thus far. The only thing I really dislike is the communication in symbols and numbers. It's making me lose focus pretty badly. Probably his best sci-fi together with Use of Weapons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hello World Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 5 hours ago, maarsen said: Banks uses the actual definition as set out by physicists; matter that has a opposite charge from normal matter. I see. I thought it was a complete mystery as far as we know. But how are the drones carrying it around then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Love Excession. Hydrogen Sonata is not as good, but a follow up to Excession in a lot of ways, so would recommend that. Also so for those that are drawn towards Excession as a favorite in the Culture series, I highly recommend Neal Asher's Polity series. Start with Gridlinked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 I think Excession is maybe the most Culture-focused of all the Culture novels. Most of them tend to focus more on outsiders to the Culture and their interactions with it, there's a bit of that in Excession as well but it seems to spend more time on the Minds and showing the inner workings of the Culture than any of the other books. I wouldn't quite rank it as my favourite but I would put in the top 5 of Banks' SF. 6 hours ago, Hello World said: I see. I thought it was a complete mystery as far as we know. But how are the drones carrying it around then? I think you may be confusing it with the often-theorised but never discovered dark matter. Antimatter is a much better understood, it has even been made in tiny quantities in particle accelerators. I can't remember if Banks explained it, but in a lot of SF which uses antimatter they use magnetic fields to contain it and keep it from interacting with normal matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 6 hours ago, Hello World said: I see. I thought it was a complete mystery as far as we know. But how are the drones carrying it around then? Presumably using a more advanced version of the tech CERN used to trap antimatter for 16 minutes in 2011. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hello World Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 16 minutes ago, williamjm said: I think you may be confusing it with the often-theorised but never discovered dark matter. Ah... right. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teng Ai Hui Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 I'm 30% into Consider Phlebas and really don't like Horza. He's too much of a Johnny Goodboy. He has a near-death experience every 10 pages, and there's never a worry that he won't survive. When the Culture is on-screen the book is infinitely more interesting. This series as a whole is spoken of very highly here, so I'll stick with it for a while longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 I love of all them, as i am an unabashed Banks fanboy, but Consider is definitely one of the weaker ones. (I think I actually read it third). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altherion Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 Is there somewhere I can get these in e-book format? Amazon has some of them, but not all. Also, are there any compilations? I hate hunting down five old books and then discovering that there's a single big one that includes all of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 Kobo has all of his books, M. and otherwise, in e-book, though if you have a kindle getting them to work for you will presumably require some Calibre-involved effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgambino Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 I have only read the first 3 Culture books, but I thought they ranged from good (Consider) to incredible (Use of Weapons). I've also his non-Culture book, The Algebraist, which I thought was poop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denvek Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 I've not read the Algebraist, but I have read the other two non-Culture books; Against a Dark Background, and Feersum Endjinn, which are both pretty good (although Feersum Endjinn can be tough going since about a quarter of it is written as the journal of the massively dyslexic protagonist). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 17 hours ago, Teng Ai Bellerin said: I'm 30% into Consider Phlebas and really don't like Horza. He's too much of a Johnny Goodboy. He has a near-death experience every 10 pages, and there's never a worry that he won't survive. When the Culture is on-screen the book is infinitely more interesting. This series as a whole is spoken of very highly here, so I'll stick with it for a while longer. As others have said it is one of the weaker books in the series, although I think the second half was better than the first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 Don;t think there are any collections, physically anyway, they are all pretty meaty books. Well, book 4 is a short story collection that actually only has 3 culture stories I think, and sometimes isn't counted as book 4, but yeah, no collections that I know of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hello World Posted July 2, 2016 Author Share Posted July 2, 2016 I had to take a break from reading Excession, unfortunately. I said that it seemed to me the first 170ish pages were setup. Now having continued reading I'm thinking the first 350ish pages are actually setup, and the story only picks up from there. It's all great though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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