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In Player of Games, the Culture doesn't represent we humans on Earth. The Azad do. They aren't alien and different because of that.
by nooneelse 14y ago
In Player of Games, the Culture doesn't represent we humans on Earth. The Azad do. They aren't alien and different because of that.
- abraininavat 14y agoYou're missing my point. The Culture and the Azadians were very anatomically similar. That's silly and lacks imagination.
- lobster_johnson 14y agoBanks explains, in one the books, how the universe somehow produces humanoids all over the place, for unknown reasons; probably it's simply an optimal shape in a certain type of gravity and atmosphere; and that this is why many of the species in the books are humanoid. It's a writer's way out, really, and a perfectly adequate one. Banks has other weird and interesting species appearing in the periphery. But the books are ultimately not about weird aliens.
- satori99 14y agoHe also goes further in this explanation in another work (whose name eludes me), in so far as some races deliberately seed the galaxy with humans so that when a race such as ours breaks free of their solar system, they don't get all hegemonic because there are already humans everywhere. This saves many nasty wars.
- lobster_johnson 14y agoGood point. That was Matter, I think?