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

Well, what's going on?? While New Zealand is getting colder, Australia is getting hotter - summer temperatures have been reaching record highs (up to 40 degrees celsius for up to a week in Adelaide in Jan/Feb.), less snow in the mountains ... Sounds like we're in for a bumpy ride, folks.

Books: No good fiction around. Began Burke and Wills. The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatroyd this morning. Entertaining history of the ill fated attempt to cross the continent from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860 (they all died but one, who was rescued by Aboriginal people). Interesting stuff, brings up many thoughts on Australian post-contact history.

I read about that expedition! Might have check that book of yours out

I'm about to start Ian M Bank's "Excession".

Enjoy!

I presume you've read other Culture books already?

RF

er...no. I picked it at random from the shelf in Waterstones when a friend narrow it down to two for me, this of the Use of Weapons.

Is that bad?

Yeah, it's bad. Iain M Banks sucks.

Iain Banks his 'serious novelist' persona is pretty good though.

I'm not a fan of the Iain M Banks books either. I borrowed Look to Windward to give the Culture novels another go (can't remember the other one I tried and failed to read a while back) and managed to get a third of the way through before getting bored.

>>Iain Banks his 'serious novelist' persona is pretty good though.

Yes and no. I'd give house room to The Bridge, Espedair St, Complicity, The Crow Road and (especially) The Wasp Factory.

But much of his stuff is sheer garbage. The Business. Canal Dreams. Song of Stone. Walking on Glass. Whit (surely a misprint) and the extremely overrated, utterly vapid lad novel, Dead Air.

Dead Air just did not live up to the blurb at all

I'd reads your descriptin of that book elsewhere, Della. Sounds interesting!

I'm currently reading a book called "Gil's All Fright Diner" about a zombie diner and impending Apocalypse. It's pretty funny.

Right.

Iain Banks. Yeah, him. He writes a book about a Japanese lady cellist trapped on a ship in the Panama Canal, who turns into...well, I won't ruin it for those of you who haven't read it.

Then he writes a book about a member of a quasi-Amish sect based in Scotland, and about her interaction with modern life.

Following that, he writes a pure allegory...no names, no pack drill. Shit, no countries, no ideologies, no time period. It could be anywhere. But it's everywhere. I think this is one of his most underrated books. Yes, it's hard to read. Yes, it's grim. It is, IMO, the best book written about the post Cold-War conflicts in Europe and Asia written. It's not *meant* to be easy.

Anyone not unamazed at the range of this fellah?

Yes, he writes good books about Scotland. He also experiments with form and style, characterisation, and plot, in a way that should be far more recognised than it is. As it is, he's seen as a "popular" author who can write a bit.

His science fiction needs to be approached with caution. Firstly, the main body of his "skiffy" (as he calls it) is about The Culture (With Capital Letters). He's written six Culture novels: Consider Phlebas, The Player Of Games, Use Of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look To Windward. You should really read these in order, although the first may be a bit off-putting, as it's not the best (whose first venture into the world of Sci-fi *is*?) I'd recommend The Player Of Games as being the best entry point.

Then there's his non-Culture sci-fi. Of these, I think Against A Dark Background stands out.

But frankly, if you don't like sci-fi, you won't like Banks's sci-fi.

I really hope you get on with Excession, but I feel you've been given a bit of a hard task - thrown in at the deep end, if you like. It *is* the most Culture-ish of the Culture novels, IMHO... Let us know what you thought of it.

RF

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That sounds like a good book! I read one by a guy called Simon Green, 'Agents of Light', which you'd probably enjoy. It seems similar.

Re Iain M Banks, I tried to read one of his recently, but it just bored me! I don't think I'll try again...

The Bridge was a worthy exercise in experimemntation.

Song of Stone was *not* a cold war allegory. It was just a post-apocalyptic fantasy that didn't work.

My trouble with a lot of his books is that he seems to get half an idea for a novel, but then doesn't go anywhere with it. You can imagine him sitting around the pub with his mates saying 'wouldn't it be a good idea if...' For example...The Business is 'What if you were a mega-rich exec in a really powerful corporation, flying around the world and living in luxury. Wouldn't that be neat? Now...let's see if I can think of a plot.' (He couldn't). Dead Air is a few imagined Shock Jock rants (and pretty mainstream at that, plus some lad-mag fantasies and a *very* thin plot tacked on in the last couple of chapters. Whit is great on scenery - I've holidayed near Luskentyre too - but not much else. (He does do local colour well. See The Crow Road or Espedair St)

He's admitted publically that he dashes off his books in a couple of weeks' concentrated effort every November - a mainstream novel one year, an SF one the next - so he can spend the rest of the year playing. Recently this hasn't been working. He needs to work a bit harder sometimes and think things through. And he really, really needs to work a bit harder on characterisation.

Currently Reading:
Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer (Very, VERY good)
Jarhead - Anthony Swofford (about US Marines in GW1)
What If and More What If. Two sets of essays on 'counterfactual history' - eg what if Hitler had captured the Allied oilfields in Iran before attacking the USSR.

What If and more What If are fascinating! I love them!

I thought the ones about a Mongol conquest of Europe, and examining what would have happened if William the Conqueror had been defeated are the best. England would have been totally different.

Ah! For better or worse? H'ever there are so many events in history that one could offer the same theory.

Heavier than Heaven, the biography of Kurt Cobain. Carles R. Cross

Summer of CS Lewis. Mere Christianity, Til We Have Faces, Problem of Pain, just finishing Screwtape Proposes a Toast

The C S Lewis books are brilliant - I've read all of those except Til We Have Faces. Have you read The Great Divorce?

>> Song of Stone was *not* a cold war allegory. It was just a post-apocalyptic fantasy that didn't work. <<

I didn't say it was Cold War. In fact, I specifically said no ideologies, no countries. I agree, it is a post-apocalyptic allegory - there's nothing that specifically states that it's Earth, even (as far as I recall).

Whether you think it works is, ultimately, each person's opinion.

RF