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Matter by banksiainm
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Matter

by banksiainm

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856344,296 (3.78)15
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English (32)  Dutch (1)  German (1)  All languages (34)
Showing 1-5 of 32 (next | show all)
banks does sensawunda like no-one else I know. A war between primitive (by galactic standards) civilisations on two different levels of an onion-like Shellworld reveals an ancient sentient artefact buried for millennia. The caretakers of the world believe it is their ancestor. The Culture representatives are somewhat skeptical. A very human story set against a backdrop of enormous scale. ( )
pauliharman | Jun 9, 2009 |  
A few weird names and creatures but loved the story, so different from anything I usually read - a cracker!
PruGillard | Apr 8, 2009 |  
Like many of his books, he builds his story slowly. He applies layer upon layer of story and character development. Eventually you reach a point where the pieces come together and the book unfolds, not unlike a nova. Part of his reason for doing this approach is that the Culture series of books don't follow a particular order. You can pick up any of them and begin reading.

As with all Culture series books by Iain M. Banks, this is no exception when it comes to his depth of characters, acerbic and clever humor, and field of play spanning amazing invention on a galactic scale.

But at the end it is a human story tying all of these threads together - one that most readers can relate. Part of the reason I enjoy books by the likes of Iain M. Banks or Neal Asher to name a few is their skill at not only creating a complex and creative future but also real human characters that form the heart of every story. This book was no exception. I enjoyed it. ( )
svkelley | Apr 5, 2009 |  
An interesting muse on how less-developed worlds live alongside highly developed races. How would we feel to know that there were alien(or just highly developed human) worlds and cultures out there that had more weapons, knowledge, inventions etc. Would we see them as a threat? Or would we want to leave our own (medieval in this case) world and join them? Or would we just accept it the way it was?

I can't imagine living happily on my planet with the Culture above my head exploring the universe and not wanting to be a part of it. But maybe that's because I am a sci-fi fan.

Instead of his normal excellent adventures of the Culture, exploring new social rifts, Banks has written an interesting book which touches on many different themes. I really enjoyed it, packed full of good quality sci-fi. I did find it a bit slow in the middle and then a bit too quick at the end. Great ending though, so maybe that was the way it had to be. ( )
sarah_rubyred | Apr 3, 2009 |  
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
For Adèle
First words
A light breeze produced a dry rattling sound from some nearby bushes.
Quotations
A temple was worth a dozen barracks; a militia man carrying a gun could control a small unarmed crowd only for as long as he was present; however, a single priest could put a policeman inside the head of every one of their flock, for ever.
Djan Seriy's discomfiture was being caused by the fact that some of the Culture's more self-congratulatingly clever Minds (not in itself an underpopulated category), patently with far too much time on their platters, had come up with the shiny new theory that the Culture was not just in itself completely spiffing and marvellous and a credit to all concerned, it somehow represented a sort of climactic stage for all civilisations, or at least for all those which chose to avoid heading straight for Sublimation as soon as technologically possible (Sublimation meant your whole civilisation waved farewell to the matter-based universe pretty much altogether, opting for a sort of honorary godhood).

Avoid self-destruction, recognize -- and renounce -- money for the impoverishing ration system it really was, become a bunch of interfering, do-gooding busybodies, resist the siren call of self-promotion that was Subliming and free your conscious machines to do what they did best -- essentially, running everything -- and there you were; millenia of smug self-regard stretched before you, no matter what species you had started from.
Anaplian realised they had got rather rapidly to the point that all such conversations regarding the strategic intentions of the Culture tended to arrive at sooner or later, where it became clear that the issue boiled down to the question What Are The Minds Really Up To? This was always a good question, and it was usually only churls and determinedly diehard cynics who even bothered to point out that it rarely, if ever, arrived paired up with an equally good answer.

The normal, almost ingrained response of people at this point was to metaphorically throw their hands in the air and exclaim that if *that* was what it really all boiled down to then there was no point in even attempting to pursue the issue further because as soon as the motivations, analyses and stratagems of Minds become the defining factor in a matter, all bets were most profoundly off, for the simple reason that any and all efforts to second-guess such infinitely subtle and hideously devious devices were self-evidentally futile.

Anaplian was not so sure about this. It was her suspicion that it suited the purposes of the Minds rather too neatly that people believed this so unquestioningly. Such a reaction represented not so much the honest appraisal of further enquiry as being pointless as an unthinking rejection of the need to enquire at all.
Last words
Disambiguation notice
This is a Culture novel by Banks-with-an-M released in 2008. "Matter" was also a working title of the "non-M" book "The Steep Approach to Garbadale", but this is not that book. Please do not combine this with Garbadale.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Book description

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0316005363, Hardcover)

In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.

Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has changed almost beyond recognition to become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy.

Concealing her new identity - and her particular set of abilities - might be a dangerous strategy, however. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.

MATTER is a novel of dazzling wit and serious purpose. An extraordinary feat of storytelling and breathtaking invention on a grand scale, it is a tour de force from a writer who has turned science fiction on its head.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:13 -0400)

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