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Surface Detail (Culture) by Iain M. Banks
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Surface Detail (Culture) (edition 2011)

by Iain M. Banks

Series: The Culture (9)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
2,537915,782 (4.03)1 / 77
When sex slave Lededje Y'breq is murdered by a politician on the planet Sichult, the artificial intelligence running one of the Culture's immense starships resurrects her so she can seek revenge. Meanwhile, the Culture is uneasily watching the conflict over whether to preserve virtual Hells for the souls of "sinners" or give them the release of death.… (more)
Member:Hellebore
Title:Surface Detail (Culture)
Authors:Iain M. Banks
Info:Orbit (2011), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 656 pages
Collections:Your library
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Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks

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» See also 77 mentions

English (89)  French (2)  All languages (91)
Showing 1-5 of 89 (next | show all)
I love the culture tech ! ( )
  braidj | Dec 19, 2023 |
This is difficult. And it gets more and more difficult with each Culture novel I read. First of all - world and conceptions are beyond great, I have no words or english language skills to talk about it, really. Too much incoherent bubbly and musical thoughts.

Almost every Culture novel at the end comes to me with two faces. There is always something to like and something to not like. And the best thing? Both of this faces grows and changes with time. That is one of the most fabulous thing about Culture. Never as simple as first impression, never as simple as understanding, never as simple as afterthought. On most of the novels I have read I can give several completely different reviews at different times. Never the same. Almost to the point of "and I don't really know what the heck I'm writing about right now".

So, here is quick and simple - this novel didn't blown my brain out like "Use of weapons", or make curl with pain like "Consider Phlebias", or left empty like "Player of games" or whatever. It just showed some things about Culture, some of them so high up the power scale that it really doesn’t matter anymore. Until... next time. ( )
  WorkLastDay | Dec 17, 2023 |
This is kind of a weird book because I feel the central concept is a big introduction to make and messes with the uniqueness of a species in a previous book Look to Windward, the heaven concept of the Chelgrians. It's hard to buy the idea behind the big "war" of the book a virtual reality battle over whether it's ok to maintain a virtual reality hell sounds so silly I laughed when I first read it But as long as you accept it the book is fun and interesting and keeps up the tension. Could have done without some of the long battle description type things but eh, no big deal. I feel he could probably have done more with the virtual reality concept but I dunno. The ending wrapped things up nicely and he wrapped up most of the loose ends so I'm happy and nothing broke my suspension of disbelief

Feel it's worth warning that the book contains some rape stuff and there are some descriptions of kind of grotesque over the top gore/body horror type stuff. No rape scenes, just mentions of it.

Very ending thing hahahaha what a silly last line. Whatever. Guess he's got to get his twists in somewhere and this was a pretty funny one

Oh and the epilogue gets a dig in at right wing revisionist historians so hell yeah ( )
  tombomp | Oct 31, 2023 |
I think I’ve read six Culture novels now and only really liked the first two. This one has one sick idea at its core — with infinite processing power, hells can be actually instantiated as virtual worlds nonetheless all too real to those who end up in them — but there’s no way it had to be over six hundred pages. At least one of the core narratives seems to have been no more than a sandbox for Banks’s imagination and could have been cut entirely. I like Space Opera in theory but so often it falls down into tiresome battle scenes and action sequences and there’s a lot of that here. The pacing is whack, too. Banks spends 550 pages floating around the galaxy with his sentient (and always enjoyable) ships and grab bag of aliens and pan-humans, then wraps things up hastily and somewhat anti-climactically. ( )
  yarb | Aug 2, 2023 |
Surface Detail, set in Banks's Culture universe, tells the story of a small-time spacefaring civilization, the Sichultian Enablement, and its wealthy magnate Veppers. Having completely dominated his own society through capitalistic machinations, Veppers aims higher and negotiates with much more advanced civilizations involved on both sides of a galaxy-wide war, manipulating and backstabbing his way to even more wealth. The Culture itself is not involved in this war but definitely has a preferred outcome, and after picking up Vepper's escaped slave, alternately emphasizes with her plight and tries to use her to influence the war. The book focuses on how much of a despicable and capricious person Veppers is, drawing obvious parallels to billionaires in our own society. Filled with realpolitik between many galactic civilizations, the overbearing personality of Veppers, and all of the Culture accoutrements we know from Banks's novels, Surface Detail was a fascinating read. ( )
  Phrim | Apr 28, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 89 (next | show all)
Those who love the Culture will know the best lines often go to the artificial intelligences. In Surface Detail the stand-out character is a sadistic Abominator class ship called the "Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints". The warship's barely concealed glee when, after centuries of waiting, it finally gets to blow some other ships up, is hilarious, and its motives remain intriguingly mysterious. Some other characters, particularly the Special Circumstance agent Yime Nsokyi, remain a little underdrawn. But this is a minor quibble – the novel's real power lies in the absorbing questions it poses about the value of the real, as opposed to the virtual, about who or what is expendable, and whether a society is better held together by threats or by promises.
 
added by r.orrison | editThe Times, Lisa Tuttle (Oct 9, 2010)
 

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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Banks, Iain M.primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Brandhorst, AndreasTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dusoulier, PatrickTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gálla Nóra,Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kenny, PeterNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Keynäs, VilleTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Panepinto, LaurenCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
ShuttershockCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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For Seth and Lara
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"This one might be trouble."
Vatueil, revented once more and back to using what he liked to think of as his original name - even though it wasn't - sipped his aperitif on the restaurant terrace. (Epilogue)
Ambassador Huen jumped before she was pushed, as was traditional. (Dramatis Personae)
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Wikipedia in English (2)

When sex slave Lededje Y'breq is murdered by a politician on the planet Sichult, the artificial intelligence running one of the Culture's immense starships resurrects her so she can seek revenge. Meanwhile, the Culture is uneasily watching the conflict over whether to preserve virtual Hells for the souls of "sinners" or give them the release of death.

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Book description
It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. It begins with a murder. And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself. Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture. Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful - and arguably deranged - warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war - brutal, far-reaching - is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality. It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the centre of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether.
Haiku summary
Where do the dead go?

If heaven or hell are real

And why should they stay? [elahrairah]

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Orbit Books

2 editions of this book were published by Orbit Books.

Editions: 0316123404, 0316123412

Hachette Book Group

An edition of this book was published by Hachette Book Group.

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