I know there are few Iain Banks fans in here so hopefully this will generate some replies.
Basically at the end of one of the Culture novels its revealed that the society of the title no longer exists. While its made clear that nobody expects the Culture to last longer than any other galaxy-spanning socities and it isn’t explained in the book what happened I was wondering what was likely to have been the cause of its downfall.
Did its tendency to anarchism and fractionalisation cause it split into increasingly smaller fragments, did it Sublime away (a process I’ve never quite understood if someone would be so kind to do so), was it defeated during one of the occassional wars concerning the Involveds?
Hmmm…I’ve just checked the list of Banks novels and I’m not sure which one I saw it in. If I recall correctly it was the character who spent his time in the giant gas planet thingie (technical term, bare with me), he was resurrected some massive amount of time in the future and was told that his home society was no longer extant.
It may have been The Algebraist but thats listed as a non-Culture novel.
What does Subliming mean exactly, its a means used by Banks to ensure that galactic society doesn’t stagnate, but as far as I can gather its talked about in fairly mystical terms, the society moves en masse (generally) from the physical to some other realm?
btw personally I’ve found The Culture story-world a much less attractive place to imagine living in after the events of Surface Detail, good book but with some extremely freaky and disturbing, but logical, concepts.
btw I came across this line on wikipedia:
"The Spheres (Birmingham Science Fiction Group, 2010)
Includes 'The Spheres', excised from the original draft of Transition; and 'The Secret Courtyard', excised from Matter. Limited edition of 500, to mark Novacon 40."
A limited edition short story collection, I don’t see it listed for purchase on amazon. Why would Banks do this? I’d like to read whatever he’s published but if its a super-secret special edition I won’t get the chance to.
One of the reasons I liked the Algebraist is that its never clarified whether its set before or after the rise and fall of the Culture (or in another universe entirely).
One reading of it is:
that its set after the Culture’s society ended in war between the AI and non-AI.
I also really like:
the idea of the “The Matrix” (e.g. the concept of the entire universe being simulation) being the universal religion
I beleive it was in Excession
The character in question was a minor character who was a type of biologist studying some very long lived creatures who lived inside gas clouds or somesuch. Some other dudes who were off to start a fight somewhere came across this biologist and threw him out of an airlock as they didnt want him raising the alarm.
Many billions of years later the gas cloud living creatures complete an orbit of the galaxy and end up in the same space as the floating frozen body of the biologist and bring him back to life. he asks what happened to the Culture and he is told “who , hmm minor civilisation, they were not around for long”
Well that’s the best I can remember it - but Excession is your book.
I may have to read that book again, I remember being underwhelmed the first time. Although ‘underwhelmed’ in Iain Banks terms is still pretty entertaining.
I didn’t like the bleed-over between real world events and those of the novel, I found the whole Gulf-War II parrallels to be suspension-of-disbelief destroying.
btw what was the huge twist at the end, I’ve heard several people reference it but I don’t recall what it was?
That is what I’m thinking of but I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen in Excession. Excession was the first Banks book I ever read and I don’t recall that part of the plot.
Now my curiosity is piqued I’m going to do a little research to find out what the correct book is. And a hundred-thousand humble apologies in advance if it is Excession!
It’s pretty clear it’s set in a non-Culture universe - no non-wormhole FTL, anywhere in the history of the entire Milky Way galaxy (since it includes Earth - a place visited by the Culture in their universe)
And I have no memory of this resurrected biologist in the far future in Excession (a book I re-read every year). There is a coda to the book, but it’s from the point of view of the multi-dimensional courier entity that is the Excession, not anyone else.
The only Culture book I don’t own, and so don’t re-read, is the short story collection, State of the Art, which includes a couple Culture stories. I don’t remember anything in there, either.
There are two possibilities - the real meaning of the transform, or the hidden AI identified right at the end. Neither was a huge twist to me, there are sufficient clues to both.
I wanted to return to this - there’s* no way* what you mention in the spoiler is remotely possible, given what we know about the relative capabilities of various elements of the Culture and also the structure of their military.
Although a nice alternate universe version of something similar would be the New Outer Limits episode The Human Operators but suffice to say this is not how it would go down in the Culture.
That’s sort of how I remember it, except that the book was Look to Windward not Excession. And IIRC the Culture was referred to as “The Lesser Abomination” by them.
I spotted the hidden AI fairly on myself (not that I’m usually good at spotting twists) so maybe thats why the ‘big reveal’ wasn’t that unexpected to me. I only realised the other big secret at the last moment despite as you say obvious clues throughout the story, a total ‘How obvious!’ forehead slapping moment.
I meant to comment on that myself, there is simply no way the humans in the Culture universe could win in a war against the machines, it would be like an isolated tribe in Papua-New-Guinae defeating the entire USA and even then that is magnitudes closer in capabilities than the divide in the Culture.
The only way human(oids) might have a chance of even avoiding extinction is if part of the AI forces and Mind’s threw their lot in with them.
Although I love society depicted in Bank’s story-universe I recognise why some people view it as less than ideal, humanity and other biological sentient citizens are really entirely dependent on the continued benignity (if thats even a word) of the Minds. And as we have seen some of those are less than pleasant.
That’s an interesting way of interpreting that line, personally I never thought that The Culture would be that long lasting in the grand scheme of things, and its a poignant thought that for all their ‘good works’ in the context of the history of the galaxy they’d be just one more civilisation that rose and fell.
Ok my apologies, it is Look to windward, Uagen Zlepe a scholar researching some big beasties was brought back to life after floating in space for one galactic cycle. I had it stuck in my head it was the Affront who came across him when they were out looking for some mothballed culture warships from Excession.