The State of the Art
The first ever collection of Iain Banks’s short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
11mentions
10people
2014–2026years
18% recommend73% neutral9% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Interesting take :)
You should read (if you haven't) The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks, particularly the eponymous novella. Summary from the wikipedia page:
"The State of the Art"
At 100 pages long, the title novella makes up the bulk of the book. The novella chronicles a Culture mission to Earth in the late 1970s, and also serves as a prequel of sorts to Use of Weapons by featuring two of that novel's characters, Diziet Sma and the drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw. Here, Sma argues for contact with Earth, to try to fix the mess the human species has made of it; another Culture citizen, Linter, goes native, choosing to renounce his Culture body enhancements so as to be more like the locals; and Li, who is a Star Trek fan, argues that the whole "incontestably neurotic and clinically insane species" should be eradicated with a micro black hole. The ship Arbitrary has ideas, and a sense of humour, of its own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art'Also while I'd been away, the ship had sent a request on a postcard to the BBC's World Service, asking for 'Mr David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for the good ship Arbitrary and all who sail in her.' (This from a machine that could have swamped Earth's entire electro-magnetic spectrum with whatever the hell it wanted from somewhere beyond Betelgeuse.) It didn't get the request played. The ship thought this was hilarious.'[2] - Advanced API Security by Prabath Siriwardena
Just started it, but so far it's a well-written discussion of OAuth, OpenID Connect, UMA, and JSON for API security.
The State of the Art by Iain Banks
I have been forcing myself to ration out the Culture books so I don't run through them too quickly. Such a great series.
The Trauma of Everyday Life by Mark Epstein
The fourth book I've read by him, a really good synthesis of Buddhism and psychology. I was pleasantly surprised to see him appear in Dan Harris's 10% Happier, too.
The State of the Art by Iain Banks (The Culture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art#Collectio...I sampled some of Li’s unusual dish while he continued. “I had the ship take a few cells from a variety of people on Earth. Without their knowledge, of course.” He waved the sword vaguely at the table behind us. “Most of you over there will be eating either Stewed Idi Amin or General Pinochet Chilli Con Carne; here in the centre we have a combination of General Stroessner Meat Balls and Richard Nixon Burgers. The rest of you have Ferdinand Marcos Sauté and Shah of Iran Kebabs. ...” We ate up, most of us quite amused. One or two thought the idea a little too outré, and some affected boredom because they thought Li needed discouragement not accomplices, while a few were just too full already. But the majority laughed and ate, comparing tastes and textures. “If they could see us now,” Roghres giggled. “Cannibals from outer space!”- > We see brief glimpses in Player of Games (at its very start) and perhaps Inversions (the story about when they were kids) but mostly it's all SC all the time.
Was The State of the Art SC? Been a while since I read it.
- When you start skipping endless and pointless dialog between multitude of characters you cant't remember, you know this is not for you.
There is only one brilliant story from Iain Banks. Quote Grok:
The Iain M. Banks novel that features a space suit carrying a dead human is "The State of the Art". Specifically, the short story within this collection is titled "Descendant." In this story, a Culture soldier and his sentient space suit struggle to survive after being shot down and crash-landing on a barren planet.
- Consider Phelbas is good but as the first culture book it would have been the introduction of the culture/ship ai ideas for people which would have made a big impact.
unfortunately I read it after going through a lot of Iain Banks' books such as The State of the Art, The Crow Road, The Bridge and Feersum Endjinn, and found it to be just ok.
