#iainmbanks — Public Fediverse posts

“What an incredible coincidence it is that our moon fits exactly over our sun…”

—In his 2009 parallel-universes novel TRANSITION, Iain (M) Banks suggested that one of our planet’s near-miraculous total eclipses would be a perfect place to look for alien tourists

@bookstodon

https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/iain-banks/transition/9780349139272/

#Scottish #literature #IainMBanks #IainBanks #sciencefiction #scifi #eclipse #eclipse2026 #aliens

”The supergenious AI is a deflection, so Elon doesn’t have to answer the question.”

AGI = Avoiding Gillionaire Incumbency

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ub_YVMsCUks

#elonmusk #agi #bullshit #scifi #culture #critique #iainmbanks #bookstodon

@helvick @gimulnautti That's the second iteration of the Use of Weapons cover. The original, that wasn't used on the book, had the aircraft firing on the land position, rather than being fired UPON from the ground, as in the text.

It was used as the cover for an issue of Foundation.

#ScienceFiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

“I mean, your society’s broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No let’s blame the people with no power & no money & these immigrants who don’t even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.”

—Iain Banks died #OTD, 9 June, 2013

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the-final-interview

#Scottish #literature #IainBanks #IainMBanks

@amiserabilist @Kierkegaanks @Soldusty @Mrfunkedude @MAJ1 @Alice The Culture Novels are better version of this, 'drug glands!'

That's the sort of Future I was promised!

#IainMBanks

It's our monthly scifi #bookgroup in @thegamerclub #Glasgow this Wed (20th May) from 6pm. We're talking about The Culture & Iain M Banks.

A Few Notes on the Culture, by Iain M Banks: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

All welcome. RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/the-glasgow-geeks/events/314310826/

#iainmbanks #theculture #geeksocial

Hot Take: Vyr Cossont¹ is basically Trixie Lulamoon² with extra arms and a Culture budget.

Both are genuinely talented performers who work obsessively at their craft, but both also confuse “I am extremely good at this niche thing” with “I am objectively Great and Powerful.”

Then they run headfirst into entities so far beyond them that the contest is meaningful only as an event that might spark contemplation and personal growth: Twilight Sparkle in one case, a Culture Mind in the other. (But don’t hold your breath; Twilight Sparkle still lives with imposter syndrome.)

The tragedy is not that they lack talent. The tragedy is that their egos interpret talent as proof of cosmic importance.

Also, in Fallout: Equestria³, Trixie may have been denied her redemption arc but she wound up with more limbs even without the benefits of living in a post-scarcity near-utopia. What do you mean it’s not a contest? The Great and Powerful Goddess’ patience can only go so far!

———

¹ Character from Iain M. Banks’ The Hydrogen Sonata.

² Character from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, first appearing in the Season 1 episode “Boast Busters.”

³ Fan fiction by Kkat, longer than War and Peace and twice the fun. Later expanded by Somber’s Fallout: Equestria: Project Horizons, which explores many of the same themes from another angle — and is longer.

#VyrCossont #Trixie #TrixieLulamoon #MLP #HydrogenSonata #FalloutEquestria #ProjectHorizons #IainMBanks #CultureNovels #MLPFIM

#IainMBanks #TheCulture #SurfaceDetail

I've decided to re-read the entire series of Culture novels and short stories this summer. Been musing which one to start with. Not by order of publication. I'll take them in whichever order I feel like, one-by-one, starting today with Surface Detail because I remember fondly the character Lededje Y'breq who is taught and trained by the Mind on her ship Of Course I Still Love You.

Mmm, delicious Culture immersion.

If Angine de Poitrine is an Aggressive Hegemonizing Swarm then consider me consumed and crusading!

https://youtu.be/Te1HkBx7rDw

#AngineDePoitrine #Music #IainMBanks

Naming your rocket "Never Tell Me The Odds" sounds awesome right up until the point where you fail to beat the odds.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/04/19/blue-origin-new-glenn-launch-satellite-not-useful/9591776621057/

I hope the insurance company is amused that #BlueOrigin managed to make both a #StarWars and #IainMBanks reference at the same time while they are writing a multi-million dollar check.

h/t @NatalieDavis @YakyuNightOwl

#Jucika is part of SC, or at least in Contact. You can’t change my mind.
#iainmbanks #culture #jucikafanart

Some words about the thought process that went into the development of Broken Spark, Chapter 9: on the nature of ship computer interfaces in the far future. Review of Dr Who, Blakes Seven, Star Trek, Knight Rider, the books of Iain M. Banks...

https://khleedril.org/blog/2026-03-19--sci-fi-ship-computer.html

https://khleedril.org/spark

#writing #BrokenSpark #scifi #DrWho #StarTrek #Blakes7 #KnightRider #IainMBanks

@Nickiquote this is how I feel when Elon Musk desecrates the memory of Iain M Banks

#IainMBanks #TheCulture

@puercomal

Oh that's really good. And to bring up one of the best from one of the best! You made my day!

#StarTrek
#ConsiderPhlebas #IainMBanks

Currently on BBC Sounds: THE STATE OF THE ART by Iain M. Banks

In 1977, the Culture starship GCU ARBITRARY discovers Earth: a primitive society on the edge of self-destruction.

When Contact agent Dervley Linter decides to go native, can Diziet Sma change his mind?

@bookstodon

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hv1dz

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #scifi #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #audiobook

RE: https://mastodon.scot/@scotlit/116080616274217433

⭐️⭐️⭐️🧵On the writing and influence of #iainmbanks — his double life as an author

@bookstodon

“An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop…”

—Iain M. Banks, EXCESSION (1996)

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #videogames #Civ #Civilization #SidMeier

“Sid Meier’s CIVILIZATION was one of the most addicting games of my life… I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Iain M. Banks shared the addiction and that his Culture novel EXCESSION was in part inspired by it.”

—Peter Tieryas on how Sid Meier’s CIVILIZATION helped inspire Iain M. Banks’s 1996 Culture novel EXCESSION

@bookstodon

https://reactormag.com/on-iain-m-banks-and-the-video-game-that-inspired-excession-sid-meier-civilization/

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #videogames #Civ #Civilization #SidMeier

@bookstodon

“I mean, your society’s broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No let’s blame the people with no power & no money & these immigrants who don’t even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.”

—Iain Banks, the final interview

13/13

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the-final-interview

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

@bookstodon

“Pay attention to the moments of contradiction & uncertainty threaded through character dialogue & self-reflection…Watch his tone. Watch his humour. For me, that’s where the sharpest lessons are”

—Dr Bethany Jacobs for the New Scientist

12/13

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2506129-why-sci-fi-novelist-iain-m-banks-was-an-astounding-world-builder/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

@bookstodon

The New Scientist Book Club read the science-fiction masterpiece THE PLAYER OF GAMES by Iain M. Banks. In this video, Iain’s friend & fellow author Ken MacLeod discusses Iain’s schooldays, his literary influences, & his idea for a final Culture novel

11/13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7OW6A8XCgg

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

@bookstodon

Why has Iain Banks’s Culture series – “a world where your Bezoses & your Musks are not just irrelevant, but actively sought out & disempowered” – garnered a billionaire fanbase? Kurt Schiller examines ultra-rich misreadings & delusions for Blood Knife

10/13

https://bloodknife.com/culture-war-iain-m-banks-jeff-bezos/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #billionaires

@bookstodon

“Our strange wee country is as complex as any alien civilization, & getting it as right as Banks did in The Crow Road required every bit as much world-building skill as his Culture”

—Simon Stephenson travels THE CROW ROAD for Reactor Magazine

9/13

https://reactormag.com/the-difference-is-entirely-one-of-setting-iain-banks-the-crow-road/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

@bookstodon

“Banks… envisions the overcoming of scarcity as the signal achievement of the civilization made by the Minds, & yet he focuses time and again on objects of unfulfilled desire”

—Alan Jacobs on the Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M Banks, for The New Atlantis

8/13

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-ambiguous-utopia-of-iain-m-banks

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #utopia

@bookstodon

“As a humanist, atheist, and socialist, he preferred to place his trust in techno-scientific development, rather than his faith in gods, or his capital in the market”

Joseph S. Norman on the legacy & utopianism of Iain M. Banks’s #scifi Culture series

7/13

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/11/better-to-create-your-own-on-the-legacy-and-utopianism-of-iain-m-bankss-culture-series/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #utopia

@bookstodon

HIPPY COMMIES WITH HYPER-WEAPONS

“I think space opera in general celebrates a certain manic wildness and vivacity of vision, a refusal to be constrained”

A Few Questions About the Culture – an interview with Iain M. Banks, on Strange Horizons

6/13

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/a-few-questions-about-the-culture-an-interview-with-iain-banks/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

@bookstodon

“THE BRIDGE bends reality, breaks the rules of physics, invents technologies & plays around with impossible inventions”

—Sam Jordison explores the link between Iain Banks’s “mainstream” & science-fiction novels

5/13

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/23/iain-banks-the-bridge-link-mainstream-literature-science-fiction

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture