h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wisest Fool, The - Eccentric, AhForgetIt tendency
% GCU Grey Area
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I also like his (second?) Culture novel, "The Player of Games" as it has some great ideas, such as the alien race with three genders.
"Excession" leaves some people cold because they fail to see the ship Minds as characters in their own right, but I think I agree with you that it is one of his best.

BTW Good idea of yours to have a Banks article, I may set off to write my own page on his non-sci-fi books.


I'll be in IF if anyone needs me

absolutely
i also heard that a while ago there wa sthe possibility of a film being made of player of games, i don't know what happened though.
Same with the wasp factory although that was killed by some large studio owning the rights and not wanting to give them up and banks not allowing a large studio to make the film. Quite right.

oh and by the way in case you don't know by my name i think walking on glass is also a great book which i guarantee will keep you guess ing up to the last minute.
oh and again if you want to read two great book s read alisdair gray's lanark: a life in four books it's hilarious and the inspiration for iain bank's the bridge

Well as "The Bridge" is my favourite Banks book I'll definitely check "Lanark" out. In "The Bridge", the section with the drunken Glaswegian Orpheus is amazing, the way it comes out of nowhere and doesn't really link up with the rest of the book at all.
"Walking on Glass" is a fine 'collection'. You know in the 'palace' where there all these domes where people stick their head in and then 'become' people all over the world. Well when I saw "The Matrix" it made me realize how much better the film could have been if someone like Banks had been overseeing the script.
The Culture books as films with the budget of The Phantom Menace - that would make my new millenium.

A film of Player of Games, cool! Only problem being, it'd need to be seen on screens 100 miles wide.

It's a shame they aren't going to be showing THAT in the Millenium Dome rather than Blackadder 4-and-a-bit. I think I'd definitely make the journey then.

Sorry to go on about it, but can you imagine Excession as a movie? Just think about the Affront Banquet scene!! Wow!!
I liked The Crow Road, but I thought the TV adaptation was poor.

The best thing about books is that the special effects budget is only limited by the imaginations of the author and the reader.
A Banks sci-fi film would need a huge budget to look good and I don't think that Labour's 15 million quid new deal for films would even cover the first three minutes that I envisage

Three minutes? More like three seconds! I see a huge room with thousands of the Affront, fighting, arguing, eating, drinking. Bit like a Naim Audio Christmas Party, really. Have you tried to design the "Kiss The Blade", WF? I have, and I'm not even CLOSE.

I just wondered. If everyone who likes Iain Banks and who can also use 3D design packages in the world (mainly the UK I guess) used some spare time to make bits of the culture universe, could we collaboratively build all the models required for a film?
It would take ages, and a lot of errrm management but wouldn't it be worth it! Imagine it, the world's biggest render farm...it'd knock the Seti at home thing into a cocked hat and probably have more useful results.

They'll not be able to make films of the books - think about the ships, the size of them is beyond our scope of imagination and the sheer size of them would never come across on film.
Any one read his latest? The Business?
(And thanks for letting me know about this Grey Area, most appreciated!)

Having said that, wouldn't films of the Culture books be FANTASTIC!!

We all feel the same by the looks of it.

On the one hand a film could never do justice to the grand sweep and scale of IMB's vision.
On the other hand wouldn't it be great to see one made.

I still can't get this ambivalence emotion right

I think we've lost the one Director that could have done it, with the death of Stanley Kubrick.
Sorry, I don't have any 3D modelling software, I draw, and sometimes make models. I agree with FATC, there would be no way of scaling the things to look right. The ships in ID4 only looked that big because of the cityscapes underneath. And they were nicked straight out of "Childhoods End", by Arthur C. Clarke.

I've just started reading The Business (yes I know it's not a sci fi one, but still..) will inform you of what I think of it when I finish it!

What is it about these books that makes you keep on reading them? They are brilliant. When I first read Consider Phlebas I was taken completely by the idea of Orbitals, GSV's and galaxy-wide wars. My kind of stuff. The books just kept on getting better after that.

I have just finished Inversions, and I have to say, it is one of his best. It's very cleverly written, and I like the twist (slightly predictable, but likeable anyway) regarding the Doctor at the end of the book. I will say no more.

It's an easier read than Excession, which is excellent, except that the number of characters (including Minds) is a bit overwhelming. The characterisation of the "best supporting actor", Sleeper Service, was terrific, however.

*I* liked the Business.
Hey - he'll have a new sci fi one out next year!

Good news! Did it really take 10 weeks to read The Business?

nah sorry about that!! It took a couple of weeks but I forgot I had posted here - It gets difficult to keep a track on postings unless you get frequent replies! lol! And Hoorah - as ever I totally failed to see the end plot - all through it I'm thinking what have those teeth got to do with the price of fish?? And never got it.

I'll have to read it. I've cut back a lot on H2G2 since I received my last phone bill! I found it was very addictive, I kept coming back two or three times a day. Looking forward to his next book, and I will finally pick up the last one this weekend.