Iain M Banks

MaliA · **Posted:** Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:37

Culture film?

I think it's often mooted but I struggle to see how they will "do" the GSV communications...

Quote:

The Script....will be about a refugee from Banks' complex utopia The Culture, living undercover on a world that the anarchist socialist intergalactic colonial empire ... has just noticed, and being blackmailed into a violent act using a Culture-specific weapon.

NervousPete · **Posted:** Fri Oct 23, 2009 13:03

Pffpfpptpppfpfptptppptffffffrf-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-hngkkkkghhhuhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Sorry. ?:|

(Please let it be...)

Malc74 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 23, 2009 13:22

It'll star Tom Cruise and Cheryl Tweedy. There'll be a car chase.

Zardoz · **Posted:** Fri Oct 23, 2009 13:25

and a CGI alien with floppy ears that talks like a Rasta.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

MaliA wrote:

I think it's often mooted but I struggle to see how they will "do" the GSV communications...

They can leave that out. It's not a big part of any book after the first couple. In fact, I'm not sure it's a big part of any book after Consider Phlebas.

I think the Culture books are highly adaptable to film. They have small numbers of strong characters against a huge space opera background with plenty of pretty explosions. Use Of Weapons would be my choice, although the ending is shatteringly bleak.

MaliA · **Posted:** Fri Oct 23, 2009 13:42

Could someone very nice lend me a copy of Consider Phlebas on Saturday, and I'll post it back to you, please?

NervousPete · **Posted:** Fri Oct 23, 2009 14:31

MaliA wrote:

Could someone very nice lend me a copy of Consider Phlebas on Saturday, and I'll post it back to you, please?

Think I've still got my copy, sure.

Pundabaya · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5016

Iain M. Banks stories have been filmed loads: The Crow Road & Complicity for starters.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

Pundabaya wrote:

Iain M. Banks stories have been filmed loads: The Crow Road & Complicity for starters.

Those are Iain Banks stories.

Pundabaya · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5016

your point being?

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498

Iain M Banks = sci fi, Ian Banks = not sci fi. Big difference, chap.

Pundabaya · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5016

Same bloke.

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498

:rollseyes:

Yes, it is.

However, none of his Iain M Banks stuff has yet been fillumed, yeah? Sci fi being qualitatively different from non sci fi and that.

Pundabaya · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5016

Why should there be a difference?

Why should he publish his two sets of stories under different names?

The Sci-fi/fantasy ghetto needs to be torn down!

Sci-fi isn't really different to detective novels at all... each presents its setting, each has its realistic parts, and its woefully unrealistic parts.

Thats the package.

Something like 'The Forever War' is probably more grounded in reality than the average romance novel, and certainly has a lot more to say.

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498

Well, I agree. But sadly we, together with the D&D playing spotfests, are seen as unclean by the mainstream cultural dictators.

________ · **Joined:** 23rd Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 29

Quote:

I think it's often mooted but I struggle to see how they will "do" the GSV communications...

Quote:

They can leave that out. It's not a big part of any book after the first couple. In fact, I'm not sure it's a big part of any book after Consider Phlebas.

Really? Excession is full of it, with the humans even more marginalised than ever. You'd either have to reinterpret the story completely or have the nattering minds as some sort of humanised abstraction taking place in Infinite FunSpace. Off the top of my head.

Also, the M vs. no M thing has probably made more people aware that he does both "Lit" and Skiffy novels (than if he'd used different names definitely, and the same for both types arguably). It never fails to be mentioned in the intro to any piece the papers do on him from the mainstream perspective.

I remember a few years ago it looked like Scorsese might have a bash at Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels. Would love to see his take on Phlebas or Weapons.

Malc · **Posted:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 1:14

Still waiting for the Gap series personally...

Malc

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498

________ wrote:

I remember a few years ago it looked like Scorsese might have a bash at Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels.

Oh good lord that would make me spooge myself. Those are possibly my faovurite set of novels ever. However, his later "Ilium" books were somewhat iffy.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

________ wrote:

Really? Excession is full of it, with the humans even more marginalised than ever. You'd either have to reinterpret the story completely or have the nattering minds as some sort of humanised abstraction taking place in Infinite FunSpace. Off the top of my head.

Oh yeah. I is stupid. The last few I've read though (Look To Windward, Matter, and (cheating a bit) Inversions) haven't featured much Mind-to-Mind communication.

Quote:

Also, the M vs. no M thing has probably made more people aware that he does both "Lit" and Skiffy novels (than if he'd used different names definitely, and the same for both types arguably). It never fails to be mentioned in the intro to any piece the papers do on him from the mainstream perspective.

I think the reason to make the distinction is because he makes the distinction, so he clearly thinks it matters. I do think he writes differently under each name though, the epic, sweeping style of the Culture novels would hardly sit right with the intimate, grounded novels like The Business or The Steep Approach To Garbadale.

kalmar · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 23:32

Iain M Banks is rubbish. Iain Banks is quite good.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16632

Iain Banks latest novel is very good (it's not available as a paperback yet, just an audiobook. I've been listening to the free podcast of it whilst sitting around on jury service). Interestingly it's pretty much sci-fi but is published as just Iain Banks. Anyway I'm a few episodes in to the abridged free version and already thinking about buying the full version instead.

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Oct 27, 2009 18:14

Which one's that?

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

markg wrote:

Iain Banks latest novel is very good

Transition? I read the inner-jacket-flap text and it sounded impossibly good.

Quote:

A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? On the Concern's books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there's the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.

Grim... · **Posted:** Thu Oct 29, 2009 15:02

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

markg wrote:

Iain Banks latest novel is very good

Transition? I read the inner-jacket-flap text and it sounded impossibly good.

Quote:

A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? On the Concern's books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there's the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.

It did?

Where is this free podcast, MarkG?

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16632

iTunes, not sure how to do links to that but just search the podcasts for Transition.

Grim... · **Posted:** Thu Oct 29, 2009 15:18

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16632

What's up, I thought you had an iPhone?

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

Mrs Grim... has an iPhone. Mr Grim... thinks they are for sissies so he's rocking a mostly-works-but-not-quite-and-everything-is-more-difficult Android G1.

Grim... · **Posted:** Thu Oct 29, 2009 15:25

Hey, look at me checking my emails while recording my GPS route and listening to Spotify and using location-based system settings on my (far cheaper) phone.

I'll have to wait until I get home.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16632

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Mrs Grim... has an iPhone. Mr Grim... thinks they are for sissies.

They aren't for sissies, they are for fools or people with far too much money. Hence why I just bought an iPod Touch.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

markg wrote:

They aren't for sissies, they are for fools or people with far too much money.

If I follow your logic, I should own two, then.

Grim... · **Posted:** Thu Oct 29, 2009 15:33

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

markg wrote:

They aren't for sissies, they are for fools or people with far too much money.

If I follow your logic, I should own two, then.

I do

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16632

They are dead nice and that, however working from home as I do in no way can I justify spending the extra £680 on an iPod that also works as a phone. I'm not entirely sure I'd be able to if I didn't, although I guess I might possibly if I had to sit on a bus for hours every day, otherwise I just don't know when I'd use it.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

markg wrote:

They are dead nice and that, however working from home as I do in no way can I justify spending the extra £680 on an iPod that also works as a phone.

This doesn't quite work for me, because if I didn't have an iPhone I'd still be paying £25-35 a month on a phone contract, just with some other phone. So the contract aspect is revenue-neutral.

Grim... · **Posted:** Thu Oct 29, 2009 15:39

markg wrote:

They are dead nice and that, however working from home as I do in no way can I justify spending the extra £680 on an iPod that also works as a phone.

You managed to spend £100 extra on an iPod with a touch screen, though

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16632

Grim... wrote:

markg wrote:

They are dead nice and that, however working from home as I do in no way can I justify spending the extra £680 on an iPod that also works as a phone.

You managed to spend £100 extra on an iPod with a touch screen, though

This is true and I even got less storage. However all the arguments about it also being a good little games machine and neato little computery thing actually seem appealing when it doesn't cost the best part of a grand.

Be Excellent To Each Other

Iain M Banks
On Fillum

Who is online

Be Excellent To Each Other

Iain M Banks On Fillum

Who is online

Iain M Banks
On Fillum