Iain M Banks

[Rane Longfox]

I always feel that reading them in the order they're published is a good plan. The books pretty much follow the chronological advancement of the Culture, so it's a decent idea. Consider Phlebas should therefore be the first one you read, followed by The Player of Games and Use of Weapons (which are incidentally the best two books he's written, pretty much)

[Allegra]

Are his SF books as dark and disturbing as his Wasp Factory? That's his only book I've read and despite I admired his writing I didn't dare to read another book of his. At the time I was reading it I sort of wondered whether the brilliant author himself a psychopath! I especially hated the parts of torturing little dogs.

[Rane Longfox]

Use of Weapons is a bit disturbing. But brilliant

[Anthony G Williams]

I like his Culture series very much, and must have worked my way through most of them by now. His writing has an intelligence and humour which lifts what might otherwise be heavy going.

I couldn't read Feersum Enjinn (sp?) at all, though. Several pages of dialect had me giving up in irritation.

[Green]

You just have to read it in a Scottish accent - then it flows much more easily

Unlike most people, I found Use of Weapons to be a bit on the crap side. The end was good, the rest meh.

[pyan]

I agree with Rane about The Player Of Games, though - I thought it was brilliant.

[iansales]

Banks has a new Culture novel coming out next year, Matter. He read an excerpt from it at alt.fiction in Derby.

[disrepdog]

He was very entertaining at Derby wasn't he.

I liked his quote that you can have a perfect poem but not a perfect novel.

I think I am one of those rare people who started reading his Culture books first, (the guy has one hell of an imagination ) then read The Crow Road (very good) and haven't read The Wasp Factory yet.

But to answer your original question Brian, the SF books are not tacky at all. Visionary..maybe.
You do have to immerse yourself in them. He does raise social and moral questions in them. He said, IIRC, in Derby when asked about his books being left wing, that he did want to balance out the right wing stuff out there.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by disrepdog

He said, IIRC, in Derby when asked about his books being left wing, that he did want to balance out the right wing stuff out there.

He's trotted out that quote loads of times. It's even remarked on in The Space Opera Renaissance, edited by David G Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer - and they find it a bit offensive because of course US space opera isn't right wing no not at all...

I'm currently in the middle of Banks's latest mainstream novel, The Steep Approach to Garbadale. Not sure where it's going yet, although it's certainly better than this last few mainstream novels.

[gully_foyle]

Originally Posted by Allegra

Are his SF books as dark and disturbing as his Wasp Factory? That's his only book I've read and despite I admired his writing I didn't dare to read another book of his. At the time I was reading it I sort of wondered whether the brilliant author himself a psychopath! I especially hated the parts of torturing little dogs.

Hi Allegra. I read The Wasp Factory nearly 20 years ago and I found it pretty dark and a bit sick in parts. Don't forget this was the decade of American Psycho and the sick factor was a selling point back then. Whilst his SF is violent I haven't found it to be dark or bleak. A book like The Algebraist is just plain fun. I'm still making my way through them, but so far I can highly recommend Excession and The Algebraist.

[Allegra]

Thanks for the recommendation, Gully! I was just going to ask someone to recommend me a book of his that wouldn't make me sick because I did like his writing very much. I'll look it up right away.

[iansales]

Against A Dark Background, a non-Culture novel, is probably the most fun of his sf books.

[Anthony G Williams]

Originally Posted by iansales

Against A Dark Background, a non-Culture novel, is probably the most fun of his sf books.

Fun? As in, you get to like the heroes and everyone (except one) is killed off in various horrible ways?

Remind me never to accept an invitation from you to go out for a bit of fun

[iansales]

Well, it's hardly a serious novel, even if it does have a high bodycount. I mean, the maguffin is called the Lazy Gun. :-)

[Anthony G Williams]

Originally Posted by iansales

Well, it's hardly a serious novel, even if it does have a high bodycount. I mean, the maguffin is called the Lazy Gun. :-)

That rings a bell somewhere - was it a PKDick story about a gun called something like that?