Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb72
I loved that book. Fantastic space opera. After reading this I tracked down every sci-fi book he'd written. They sit proudly on my bookshelf, but I've only read a few of them so far....so much to read.  |
Maybe it's because you're not American? It seems Americans generally don't like Banks. Dunno why. No offence intended to Americans, but that's what I'm seeing. Maybe it's all the semi-colons and long complex sentence structures? I'm opening myself up to a world of pain here.
Maybe it's because Banks' Culture is a communist Utopia and he railed against Bush and Blair and the war on Iraq. At the same time, Consider Phlebas rails againt Muslim extremism and oppresion of tolerance in all forms (in the form of the Idirians--they have a ship called The Fist of God #234 haha!). It begins with the quote from the Koran "Carnage is better than Idolatary." It's a bit more intelligent that books about sticking microchips up your anus and calling it the future. Duh.
How can this poll not include him when it includes Wyndhams' Triffids? Yee Gods, it was written in the fifties or something and is about killing killer plants with sea-water. Bizarre. And I like Wyndham! And Harrison? And Dick? Don't get me wrong. Dick was "a Prince among Knaves" (google the Lem Affair), but it's old material! Sci-fi has moved on. There is a new good intelligent work being done. Lets emphasize it. As I said, without it, this poll is meaningless.
Oh, yeah. If anyone is interested and hasn't read it, check out The White Mountains trilogy by John Christopher. It's old and written for kids, but way better than 90% of the tosh nominated in this poll
Weeeeeee Tripods!