Surface Detail (the new Culture book)

[lPeregrine]

Anyone else pay the extra international shipping (or live in the UK) for this one? My general thoughts, without any plot-relevant spoilers:

The good:
+ It's another Culture book. IMO it's not the best one, but the reasons why I loved the earlier ones are still just as true.
+ More depth to Contact, in the form of new specialist divisions (to the dead, the Sublimed, self-duplicating swarms, etc). They don't get as much detail as Special Circumstances has seen, but it's still interesting to see.
+ A lot of detail on the "afterlife" in a super-advanced civilization. Where previously we've just seen vague references to "upload to a virtual afterlife", now we get to see this in full detail, complete with multiple variations and exploration of the issues they would cause (does even heaven get boring, interactions with the real world, etc.).
+ A bit of a look at galactic politics. Surface Detail takes place after Look to Windward, and refers to a loss of status for the Culture following the failed intervention in that book. There isn't any kind of war, or even much of a formal punishment, but the Culture does, for example, end up transferring oversight of some high-level artifacts (a giant collection of orbital factory stations, currently being used by a lower-level civilization under supervision) to another group of higher-level civilizations. Like the Culture's "government", the entire thing seems informal at best, and based entirely on cooperation for the sake of keeping a good social reputation.

The "bad":
- It's another long book like Matter. The plot does start to come together sooner and the ending doesn't feel like the author just ran out of pages, but I still think there's something to be said for the more focused approach like Use of Weapons.
- Since most of the viewpoint characters are from outside the Culture and only interact with the ships through their humanoid avatars, we don't get to see much of an Excession-style look into the Minds. Since the Minds and drones are, IMO, some of the best characters in the series, this is a bit disappointing.




Also, a couple interesting notes on "who can the Culture destroy":

1) Even though the Culture is almost off the power level scale, technology is NOT static. At one point a modern Culture warship is disguising itself as an older class of warship. A fleet from a level 7 civilization (the Culture is level 8) hits it with an attack that would have instantly destroyed the older class. The Culture ship responds by effortlessly destroying the entire fleet.


2) Swarming with inferior ships doesn't work. There is a conversation involving a fleet of over 200 million level 4-5-ish warships, a number which one character can hardly believe, remarking that surely it would be enough to conquer the entire galaxy!. A more informed character responds that actually, a single GSV could take on all 200+ million simultaneously and win, without even making a real effort.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Next time you might consider putting the plot points under spoiler protection even if they are pretty much standard Cultureverse stuff that can be deduced from the earlier books.
Spoiler

The 200 million inferior ships versus a GSV does sound a little wankery, but considering that they were much inferior it does make sense, especially since the higher level civilizations have essentially nearly unlimited energy reserves and can just keep on shooting indefinitely.

In general it sounds like Banks is now firmly in the run-of-the-mill part of the Cultureverse lifecycle, which is kind of sad, but maybe inevitable. Perhaps he should try to write more non-Culture scifi again. I will still read the book of course once it's available here, but I won't order it directly from the UK unless I have some other stuff to order at the same time.

[lPeregrine]

Next time you might consider putting the plot points under spoiler protection even if they are pretty much standard Cultureverse stuff that can be deduced from the earlier books.

Was there something specific you had in mind there? All of the things I mentioned either show up very early in the book, or are just minor details that won't ruin the story. However, if people here are stricter about spoilers, I won't complain if a moderator edits any offending statements into spoiler tags.
Spoiler

The 200 million inferior ships versus a GSV does sound a little wankery, but considering that they were much inferior it does make sense, especially since the higher level civilizations have essentially nearly unlimited energy reserves and can just keep on shooting indefinitely.

Not sure what you mean by "last chapter" as this is not even close to the end, but:
Spoiler

It's stated to be due to the GSV's superior speed and effectors that can easily turn the lower-level fleet against itself. I guess in theory it could be exaggeration since the event is only theoretical, but there's probably a lot of truth to the statement.

[Vendetta]

I think it's made perfectly clear that it means that the GSV would just stay out of weapons range and pick the enemies off at leisure.

[Jadeite]

Not sure what you mean by "last chapter" as this is not even close to the end, but:
Spoiler

It's stated to be due to the GSV's superior speed and effectors that can easily turn the lower-level fleet against itself. I guess in theory it could be exaggeration since the event is only theoretical, but there's probably a lot of truth to the statement.

Spoiler

Remember that Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints is stated to be 'destroying thousands of them every minute' by Bettlescroy, and that within a day and a half the entire fleet would be gone. Its further mentioned that this rate is because Falling Outside is merely enjoying itself, and that if it wanted to, the entire fleet could be wiped out within hours. Its pretty clear that there's no exaggeration of capabilities.

[Lurks-no-More]

Well... Spoiler

FOTNMC is an Abominator GOU, built and armed with the best of the best of Culture's top-end military technology; it's about as nasty as warships come in Cultureverse. Considering that the ships being churned out by the Disk factories were lower-tech, intended for quick, suicidal attacks against the Hell-substrates, and that they're being sent to battle without full armaments loads (especially AM) and in some cases not fully finished, no wonder FOTNMC is having an easy time swatting them from the sky.

[dworkin]

That's a spoiler? Compared to the actual reveal it's like reviewing ESB and insisting on the existence of the Executor as being a spoiler as opposed to you know, plot stuff.
Spoiler

I liked the fact that all the while people were mucking about with ships, factions and virtual wars there was a grass-roots campaign starting which would be just as important in removing the Hells.

[Lurks-no-More]

That's a spoiler? Compared to the actual reveal it's like reviewing ESB and insisting on the existence of the Executor as being a spoiler as opposed to you know, plot stuff.

Admittedly, I might have gone a little overboard; still, it's a pretty fresh book, and the spoiler was intended to cover more what it does than what it is.

Spoiler

I liked the fact that all the while people were mucking about with ships, factions and virtual wars there was a grass-roots campaign starting which would be just as important in removing the Hells.

Yes, that was a very good part of the book. Nothing like the human (alien?) element!

[CaptJodan]

I'm only part way through the book so far. For some reason, the descriptions of Hell I've gotten so far remind me so much of 40K Chaos worlds I've read about (and those have been few and far between). Though I suppose Hell is Hell, regardless. Hard to make unimaginable misery and pain without it sounding like 40K, or 40K sounding like Dante, or Dante sounding like...

[Marcus Aurelius]

I'm only part way through the book so far. For some reason, the descriptions of Hell I've gotten so far remind me so much of 40K Chaos worlds I've read about (and those have been few and far between). Though I suppose Hell is Hell, regardless. Hard to make unimaginable misery and pain without it sounding like 40K, or 40K sounding like Dante, or Dante sounding like...

I doubt Banks has ever played or read W40k stuff, although he probably has heard about it. His influences might come directly from Dante, but I wouldn't count out influences from Michael Moorcock, for example. Some of that Moorcock stuff (especially his older work) is so grimdark that W40k is just child's play compared to it.

[iborg]

I felt it was more fast-paced, action-oriented than previous Culture books - also more technobabble and tech shown in action (which is gonna feed the VS debates undoubtedly).
Also the beginning had me fooled. At one point I was honestly starting to believe it was a collection of short story... until the different threads began to merge.

[Sriad]

I really don't see the 200 million crappy ships vs. 1 ROU as particularly wanky... Imagine yourself on an open coverless field vs. a few tens of thousand guys who think and move 500 times slower than you do. Also, you have a recoilless AK-47 with unlimited ammo and they have knives. I'm limiting the thought experiment to mere tens of thousands only because our target-tracking ability is almost incomparably smaller than a Mind's.

Actual MAJOR spoiler:
Spoiler

I had what might be the biggest "Daaaww" moment in the series when Banks revealed with the last words in the whole book that finally, after about 1,000 years and 10,000 subjective lives, Zaklewe finally made peace with himself. All the endings, in fact, were among the most positive in the series' history. The POV character death bait-and-switchesand many twists (with well-laid groundwork, not the lazy kind) kept the narrative lively and engaging through what at first seemed like what might be an extremely long third act.

I thought it was a very good book overall, substantially better than Matter.

[D.Turtle]

I think this book requires at least two read-throughs to really appreciate it, as the beginning is simply to disjointed - jumping around seemingly completely unconnected POVs. I got really lost, and only later started understanding what was really happening and how they all fit together.

Note: I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing - I like the book quite a lot.

[ThomasP]

Actual MAJOR spoiler:
Spoiler

I had what might be the biggest "Daaaww" moment in the series when Banks revealed with the last words in the whole book that finally, after about 1,000 years and 10,000 subjective lives, Zaklewe finally made peace with himself. All the endings, in fact, were among the most positive in the series' history. The POV character death bait-and-switchesand many twists (with well-laid groundwork, not the lazy kind) kept the narrative lively and engaging through what at first seemed like what might be an extremely long third act.

This actually made me smile when I read it, because the thought had occurred to me earlier on when he was having the discussion in the Mind's galaxy-house and one of the SC ships said something that made me wonder. I wrote it off at the time, thinking there was no way Banks would touch on that.

I was pleased with the book overall.

[CaptJodan]

Finally finished the book, and enjoyed it. Definitely superior to Matter, which I didn't hate, but which left me wanting. Demeisen was by far my favorite character, but I suppose that was both intentional and expected, given that Banks always seems to go out of his way to make sure the Minds are a lot of fun. I thought the book had a good mix of both the weird and different together with the more conventional. There are some lingering questions nagging at the back of my head about some plot elements that didn't seem to amount to much, but I imagine a real READING (rather than the audiobook version) will clear some of that up.

1) Even though the Culture is almost off the power level scale, technology is NOT static. At one point a modern Culture warship is disguising itself as an older class of warship. A fleet from a level 7 civilization (the Culture is level hits it with an attack that would have instantly destroyed the older class. The Culture ship responds by effortlessly destroying the entire fleet.

You know, that was a somewhat interesting thing. We can get a fairly good estimation on how long it took for the Culture to go from 7 to 8 because of that section. The GFCF were already in the process of outfitting what amounted to a Torturer class ROU that they claimed would be better than your standard fare Torturer. We also know their fleet with, admittedly one of their three flagships, could have wasted a Torturer which was pretty much top of the line (or near it) in Excession.

If the Culture was a level 7 civilization in Excession and is now a level 8 (in probably what amounts to 1,000 or less years) then it's pretty clear that the Culture is not static. I'd argue they can't even be that terribly slow. I'd love to know how Banks is using his scale. I highly doubt this is on the Kardashev scale, but there's still not too many more iterations between 0 or 1 on that scale, which would probably represent a primitive society, and 8, which is the modern Culture.

[LapsedPacifist]

You know, that was a somewhat interesting thing. We can get a fairly good estimation on how long it took for the Culture to go from 7 to 8 because of that section. The GFCF were already in the process of outfitting what amounted to a Torturer class ROU that they claimed would be better than your standard fare Torturer. We also know their fleet with, admittedly one of their three flagships, could have wasted a Torturer which was pretty much top of the line (or near it) in Excession.

If the Culture was a level 7 civilization in Excession and is now a level 8 (in probably what amounts to 1,000 or less years) then it's pretty clear that the Culture is not static. I'd argue they can't even be that terribly slow. I'd love to know how Banks is using his scale. I highly doubt this is on the Kardashev scale, but there's still not too many more iterations between 0 or 1 on that scale, which would probably represent a primitive society, and 8, which is the modern Culture.

They were outfitting a Murderer class model, not a Torturer. I vaguely remember Murderer being mentioned someplace, but I can't find it now...

At the end of Excession there's an inventory of SS's cloud of ships. The Abominator class prototypes were Type 1, and Torturer were Type 2... At the time of Excession the Abominator was on the drawing board in some way shape or form, although that could have changed significantly.

[Luke Starkiller]

You know, that was a somewhat interesting thing. We can get a fairly good estimation on how long it took for the Culture to go from 7 to 8 because of that section. The GFCF were already in the process of outfitting what amounted to a Torturer class ROU that they claimed would be better than your standard fare Torturer. We also know their fleet with, admittedly one of their three flagships, could have wasted a Torturer which was pretty much top of the line (or near it) in Excession.

If the Culture was a level 7 civilization in Excession and is now a level 8 (in probably what amounts to 1,000 or less years) then it's pretty clear that the Culture is not static. I'd argue they can't even be that terribly slow. I'd love to know how Banks is using his scale. I highly doubt this is on the Kardashev scale, but there's still not too many more iterations between 0 or 1 on that scale, which would probably represent a primitive society, and 8, which is the modern Culture.

They were outfitting a Murderer class model, not a Torturer. I vaguely remember Murderer being mentioned someplace, but I can't find it now...

At the end of Excession there's an inventory of SS's cloud of ships. The Abominator class prototypes were Type 1, and Torturer were Type 2... At the time of Excession the Abominator was on the drawing board in some way shape or form, although that could have changed significantly.

I think the ship in Player of Games was "an old Murderer class GOU left over from the Idiran War"; though the name is escaping me for the moment.

[Terralthra]

You know, that was a somewhat interesting thing. We can get a fairly good estimation on how long it took for the Culture to go from 7 to 8 because of that section. The GFCF were already in the process of outfitting what amounted to a Torturer class ROU that they claimed would be better than your standard fare Torturer. We also know their fleet with, admittedly one of their three flagships, could have wasted a Torturer which was pretty much top of the line (or near it) in Excession.

If the Culture was a level 7 civilization in Excession and is now a level 8 (in probably what amounts to 1,000 or less years) then it's pretty clear that the Culture is not static. I'd argue they can't even be that terribly slow. I'd love to know how Banks is using his scale. I highly doubt this is on the Kardashev scale, but there's still not too many more iterations between 0 or 1 on that scale, which would probably represent a primitive society, and 8, which is the modern Culture.

They were outfitting a Murderer class model, not a Torturer. I vaguely remember Murderer being mentioned someplace, but I can't find it now...

At the end of Excession there's an inventory of SS's cloud of ships. The Abominator class prototypes were Type 1, and Torturer were Type 2... At the time of Excession the Abominator was on the drawing board in some way shape or form, although that could have changed significantly.

I think the ship in Player of Games was "an old Murderer class GOU left over from the Idiran War"; though the name is escaping me for the moment.

It's the Limiting Factor. "An old 'Murderer' class GOU left over from the Idiran war; been in deep storage about six decades from here for the last seven hundred years. Called the Limiting Factor. It's still in battle-trim at the moment, but they'll strip out the weaponry and emplace a set of game-boards and a module hangar." (p. 110-111)
Spoiler

They strip out the weaponry only to replace it with newer version of weaponry in two of the three blisters, covered by holograms.