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For me, a book should get one free pass on which they can build a plausible, self-consistent universe. If that one pass is "awesome, friendly AI with near-perfe

For me, a book should get one free pass on which they can build a plausible, self-consistent universe. If that one pass is "awesome, friendly AI with near-perfect dominance over spacetime" (The Culture), well, OK, fine. Just stick to it, then. (Spoiler: In Look to Windward, the Culture is blamed for some lesser culture's war, as the Culture did it by accident. This seemed so implausible I thought it was going to be a plot twist.) -- Yes I know the Culture isn't hard sci-fi (unless you just assume Minds exist and can do all that stuff), but it's the most uplifting stuff I've read. A perfect idea of how civilization should be. It literally affects my mood in a very positive way when I read them. But if every other chapter there's some new damn "thing" that doesn't seem to make sense in-universe then I feel like I'm just being snowed. There was some book I was reading with new words every other page. Then, on some space ship, "janitor rats" appear, that are rats, but somehow cybernetically linked to the ship over time or some such nonsense. For no apparent reason other than to have cyber rats. Nope. Greg Egan is the master of making it perfect, holy shit. His books can be a bit hard to get through. I know I didn't fully understand them, then I found out he has said that you shouldn't expect to read a book without a pencil and paper to take notes. Some of the books even have tutorial videos, explaining his [alternative] physics or such.

arethuza 11y ago
Well Banks is careful to point out that the Minds may, as far as we are concerned, be god-like but they can't predict everything (for various reasons, including moral qualms about too perfect simulations of individuals possibly having their own rights) and although they are perfectly capable of reading the state of meat based "minds" they don't do it as it's taboo (hence the "Grey Area"). Edit: The Aritrary says in The State of the Art: "I'm the smartest thing for a hundred light years radius, and by a factor of about a million... but even I can't predict where a snooker ball's going to end up after more than six collisions."
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Yep. But still... starting a longass civil war and not immediately jumping in to clean it up? I mean I guess it's possible but it certainly makes the Culture come off as incompetent pricks at a minimum.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    It might have been an attempt by Banks to address some of the criticisms of the Culture - that it was "too good". Also the Culture's revenge attack by their terror weapon (literally) on the Chel who planned the attack on the orbital show's how nasty they can be if they think it is justified ("good" doesn't necessarily, it seems, imply "nice").
  - jfoutz 11y ago
    Excession had some old, powerful, influential minds that weren't at 100%. If i remember, one even self reported - which wasn't allowed. I like to think there are things like loyalty and senility for minds but a million times more complicated. There's nothing specific in look to windward, but some damaged mind might have been in control, with the others covering up for it.

arethuza 11y ago

Well Banks is careful to point out that the Minds may, as far as we are concerned, be god-like but they can't predict everything (for various reasons, including moral qualms about too perfect simulations of individuals possibly having their own rights) and although they are perfectly capable of reading the state of meat based "minds" they don't do it as it's taboo (hence the "Grey Area"). Edit: The Aritrary says in The State of the Art: "I'm the smartest thing for a hundred light years radius, and by a factor of about a million... but even I can't predict where a snooker ball's going to end up after more than six collisions."

MichaelGG 11y ago
Yep. But still... starting a longass civil war and not immediately jumping in to clean it up? I mean I guess it's possible but it certainly makes the Culture come off as incompetent pricks at a minimum.
- arethuza 11y ago
  It might have been an attempt by Banks to address some of the criticisms of the Culture - that it was "too good". Also the Culture's revenge attack by their terror weapon (literally) on the Chel who planned the attack on the orbital show's how nasty they can be if they think it is justified ("good" doesn't necessarily, it seems, imply "nice").
- jfoutz 11y ago
  Excession had some old, powerful, influential minds that weren't at 100%. If i remember, one even self reported - which wasn't allowed. I like to think there are things like loyalty and senility for minds but a million times more complicated. There's nothing specific in look to windward, but some damaged mind might have been in control, with the others covering up for it.