Pensa a Fleba

Welcome to another edition of 'Notable Genre Author Fails to Impress Some Guy on the Internet', I'll be your host: some guy. Like so many highly-lauded authors featured here, Banks has been haunting my shelf for quite some time now. Countless are the times I have passed this book before bed, letting Leggi tutto

Many discerning readers, even ones who like SF, will reflexively sneer if you say the dreaded words "space opera". One need only think of E.E. Doc Smith, for a long time the unquestioned king of this particular sub-genre. I read Galactic Patrol when I was at primary school; like innumerable other ge Leggi tutto

Consider Iain M. Banks. an unsentimental, often ruthless writer. his characters are provided robust emotional lives and richly detailed backgrounds... all the better to punish the reader when those characters meet their often bleak fates. his narratives are ornate affairs, elaborately designed, full Leggi tutto

I can't really say much, other than Iain Banks has become my #1 favorite Sci-Fi author. I love the way he fleshes out flawed, believable characters in a Space Opera setting. I'm always surprised by his writing, and that keeps me coming back for more. If you're not into the genre, but want to give it Leggi tutto

Two stars is about right. Voltaire said something like "the best is the enemy of the good" (okay, he actually said le mieux est l'ennemi du bien ). But what is really annoying is that the coulda-been-good is more disappointing than the meh . Banks clearly has a great deal of imagination. If he was able Leggi tutto

There are some motives and ideas that pop up in all of Banks' works. In this, his first culture novel, I want to mention some of them. His background in philosophy and psychology enabled him to combine Sci-Fi with really deep criticism regarding the human past, presence and future. No matter if it w Leggi tutto