Its a good introduction, but the best Culture novels are mid series (in my opinion) so I am really quite jealous of now, you are at the start of a great series with the best to come!
Although interestingly enough there are quite a lot of readers who like the Culture books but not this one. I would say, Grunkins, that if you are enjoying Consider Phlebas (which I also loved by the way) then you are in for a great ride.
I'm pretty pumped. I have Player of Games, Use of Weapons, and Excession in my TBR stacks ready to go. I also heard some mixed reviews about Consider Phlebas and it put me off from reading it for a while, but I'm a bit over 100 pages in and it's great.
I started Iain M Banks' Consider Phlebas last night. I've been wanting to read his Culture novels for a while now. This book reads (so far) very much like a Jack Vance book. Really enjoying it.
Consider Phlebas was one of the first non-fantasy books I've read and I got hooked on Culture. I've read them all. I'd have to say that the latest, Surface Detail is one of my favorites.
Although interestingly enough there are quite a lot of readers who like the Culture books but not this one. I would say, Grunkins, that if you are enjoying Consider Phlebas (which I also loved by the way) then you are in for a great ride.
Yep - I've heard a bunch of negativity towards it, too - being elliptical here and not spoilery - perhaps mainly for its unconventional protagonist and what that does to the reader's orientation to the universe but I actually really liked that aspect - maybe the best part. It was just that revolting "Eaters" chapter that had me almost put the book down. But it recovered nicely and, while I'm kind of mixed on it, I picked up some more and will read them soon. So, yeah, it seems like its a book many people would enjoy and makes a good start (it IS how it started, after all, and the series became a success) but, if it doesn't work for some reason, maybe those readers should give it a second try with another book.
Bizarrely it was one of the last Culture books I read. When I started reading them it really was in no particular order, which, for the most part, is fine. My first Culture was Player of Games which I loved. Actually I have loved them all with the possible exception of Inversions which I just couldn't really get absorbed in. It didn't know whether it wanted to be SF or F. I haven't got around to getting Surface Detail yet so I still have that to look forward too!
Bizarrely it was one of the last Culture books I read. When I started reading them it really was in no particular order, which, for the most part, is fine. My first Culture was Player of Games which I loved. Actually I have loved them all with the possible exception of Inversions which I just couldn't really get absorbed in. It didn't know whether it wanted to be SF or F. I haven't got around to getting Surface Detail yet so I still have that to look forward too!
I've never checked out Make Room! Make Room! However, that aside, Harrison was one of my early guides into science fiction with the Deathworld and Stainless Steel Rat series. I liked the short novella style especially as someone who just came out of reading The Lord of the Rings and came across Harrison's quick and easy style in a size of book that didn't take up half your life. I suppose it could be likened to food: do you want a fast and enjoyable meal, or a long, eloquent banquet you can savour for hours...(or months, in the case of some books). That brings up another thought: some long books are so well written I've flown through them, and some "shorter" stories feel like wading in treacle... Never found that with Harrison, though.
I realize that your project comes back to Lovecraft; but if you like Pope, you ought to look up Martyn Skinner's sequence Letters to Malaya etc. This 20th-century poet revived the Popean couplet and won considerable recognition in England for his work, but he is little known here in the States.
I realize that your project comes back to Lovecraft; but if you like Pope, you ought to look up Martyn Skinner's sequence Letters to Malaya etc. This 20th-century poet revived the Popean couplet and won considerable recognition in England for his work, but he is little known here in the States.
Thanks for the suggestion; I'll have to look him up once I get this essay out of the way. It has been quite a while since I read much Pope, and there is a lot I've not read, such as his imitations of English poets, some of which are quite bawdy, such as his imitation of Chaucer....
I finished Consider Phlebas last night and thought it was great. I was really underestimating it because of the mixed reviews other readers were giving it. Really strong novel. Big adventure, fun science, fast paced and well written read.
Joe Haldeman's Marsbound. It's hard to evaluate or describe. It's got a young female protagonist with a kid brother like Podkayne of Mars and has other juvenile aspects but isn't a juvenile. It's an old-fashioned nuts-n-bolts spaceship trip to and from Mars but has a more modern feel (though the VR and made-up slang kind of ironically don't help with that). It has very vivid and detailed, yet figuratively nebulous aliens. And the plot, I guess, follows logical step by step in the sense that everything's connected and one thing leads to the next but not in a necessary sense - it's kind of like a very tight picaresque of some kind. And probably the biggest flaw can't really be specified without sort of reverse-spoiling a bit, in a minor way.
Basically, I spent the whole book wishing one character would get shoved out an airlock (which Haldeman has his narrator actually mention once). Really a poor one-dimensional "villain" without redeeming feature, yet just a trivial and stupid CENSORED and not anyone diabolically impressive.
Still, I enjoyed reading it and, while self-sufficient enough, I know it's got a couple of sequels and I'll be checking out at least the next one.
Another this-and-that to note is that, while not in the least a comic novel, it's very funny. Haldeman gives his narrator some very funny things to think/say.
-- Actually, this review is pretty solid except for missing the slang Haldeman gives Carmen (true, it's not laid on with a trowel but it's there) and that, to me, it's a spoiler-laden review and not just the line the reviewer whites out. Anyway - s/he addresses the second biggest flaw (actually more conceptually significant, but a smaller part of the reading experience) and gets the rest of it about right.
Yeah, that is still his best one, to me. But, while I've skipped some that didn't sound as interesting to me, I've never outright disliked any that I have read - which is over a dozen books now, I think. Ironically, I think the one I liked least was Forever Peace though that's only a "thematic" sequel to The Forever War, so not quite as ironic as it might be. I think my favorites after The Forever War are his collections of short work, though his novels aren't long, themselves. Anyway, hope you run into some more some time and that you enjoy them.
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