[brindy]

Frederik Pohl had digital assistants in his 1970s Heechee Saga books (but mainly in Beyond the Blue Horizon and after). Not only that but they would emulate different personalities depending on the need, eg spitballing with Einstein. However Pohl was a lot less expositional; in his novels the technology existed and he didn’t feel the need to get meta about why or how. Much more accessible than Banks, in my humble opinion.

[stevekemp]

Greg Bear's Eon also had the characters using "search programs" which were autonomous agents to collect data for consumption, which seems like something that's obviously coming soon.

Although that's a more recent work, coming out in 1985.

[lproven]

I adore Pohl's work, but I am (very) surprised to hear Banks described as inaccessible.

May I ask, where are you from?

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> May I ask, where are you from?

Not the OP, but I'm curious (sorry). What does provenance have to do with finding Banks accessible?

For the record, I'm Greek and I read most of my Sci-Fi in Greek translations. Banks was one of the first writers whose work I read entirely in the original English (the other two were Terry Pratchett and Jeff Noon, both of which I started reading around the same time as Banks). I don't remember ever feeling that his writing was inaccessible, not even Feersum Engine, discussed in the sibling comments, and which was his first I ever read. At the time my English was not too good, so, like I say, I'm curious, why do you ask the OP where they're from? Is it because of the Scottish thing you mention below?

Reading your other comments here you say you met him many times. I'm envious! Me and my friend who have both read all his books (and all the M-less books also) managed to mix up the dates and miss his visit to the town we lived at the time. That was a couple of years before he died. I hate being a fan girl but I've always felt a certain regret for never having met the guy. Or Pratchett. I'm the worlds' worst fan :)

[lproven]

> but I'm curious (sorry).

No problem!

> What does provenance have to do with finding Banks accessible?

Well, for instance, my first fiancée was Norwegian, and she really struggled with both Feersum Endjinn and the Bridge. She spoke superb English, better than native level (I am among other things a qualified TEFL/TESOL teacher, and I'd assess her as better than C2 level) -- but she could not handle phonetic English that was not in RP. (Received Pronunciation, that is, "standard" British English, or BBC English.)

Banksie was Scottish and sounded Scottish. (She met him with me, I think. I don't recall if she had problems with his spoken English.) To read the phonetic parts in IMB/IB, you need to read them in a Scottish accent -- the phonetics don't work with RP English.

(Not a clue how they work with American English, which like most Brits I understand fine but cannot speak.)

Another comparison: a few years ago in Brno in the Czech Republic I went to see Trainspotting 2 with a bunch of people: Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, German... and one other Brit, a friend of mine. It was shown in an art-house cinema, not subtitled. I told them they were brave. "Why?" they asked. "It's in English, isn't it?"

"Well, not really..." I replied. "It's in Scottish. It's not the same."

Later they told me that they barely understood a word.

The only people in that showing who did were me and the other Brit.

I am learning Czech. After 8 years, I am approaching B1 level. (Getting to A1 German took me 3 days, for comparison. A1 Czech took about 2-3 YEARS.) The more Czech I learn, to my dismay, the less Slovak I understand.

Scottish is to English as Slovak is to Czech: they are similar, quite close, but not the same. Knowing one as a foreign language may not help you to understand the other. Written English is standardized on the RP British English dialect. When Bankie wrote phonetically, he is recording a different dialect.

So, in my personal experience, a non-native speaker trying to read IB or IMB's books might struggle a lot more than they might do if they were, say, listening to an audio book of the same material.

> I've always felt a certain regret for never having met the guy.

I am very happy I got to spend a little time with him. He is one of my all-time favourite writers, and it was a privilege.

I have in fact got to meet quite a lot of my favourite writers... since you said:

> Or Pratchett.

Yes, Pterry too. I also have his first-ever novel in hardback first edition, as I was a fan of his before he wrote the Discworld books, and met him many times. About half my Pratchetts are signed.

And Douglas Adams, just the once.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Yes, Pterry too. I also have his first-ever novel in hardback first edition, as I was a fan of his before he wrote the Discworld books, and met him many times. About half my Pratchetts are signed.

>> And Douglas Adams, just the once.

Oh gosh, now I'm even more jealous :)

>> Banksie was Scottish and sounded Scottish. (She met him with me, I think. I don't recall if she had problems with his spoken English.) To read the phonetic parts in IMB/IB, you need to read them in a Scottish accent -- the phonetics don't work with RP English.

Well that's interesting. I read Feersum Engine back in 2004 I think, a year before I moved to the UK. Once arrived, it was a couple of years before I could make myself undestood by, or understand myself, any person of the British persuasion. I distinctly remember an hour-long conversation with a man from Glasgow, in which I did not understand a single word. For all I know, I nodded along and smiled politely to him claiming that the Holocaust was all made up and Hitler was right to exterminate the Jews anyway.

I know Glaswegian accents are hard. I think I get about 60% of Burnistoun. It never occurred to me that Feersum Engine must be read in a Scottish voice. I wouldn't be able to pull it off anyway. But it just really clicked for me and I didn't find it a drag, in fact the parts of Ergates the ant where the ones I liked reading the most. You know, because they were the most fun!

I certainly don't have an RP. After 17 years in the UK I have a soft, but firm, South European accent. I once watched a recording of myself giving a presentation and my accent is very, very there. It could maybe sound like a very poor attempt at imitating a Scottish accent, by someone who had only heard a very vague description of it. Maybe. Dunno.

>> "Well, not really..." I replied. "It's in Scottish. It's not the same."

More weird. I've watched Trainspotting a few times, with subtitles on or off, can't remember. I can always understand it just fine. Spud is the only one I have trouble understanding and I think that's partly on purpose.

Maybe has something to do with being Greek, at a very wild guess? Scottish people speaking English sound to me like they're making the sweetest sounds that remind me of home. We have strong "ARRRs" (like in "Rory") and "CHAAAs" (like in "loch") too.

Thank you for being kind to my curiosity!

[lproven]

My pleasure!

Yes, what your L1 language is does affect these things, and ability with accents varies a lot, even among natives.

[brindy]

UK, living in Scotland since 2005.

I found there were too many new concepts just thrown about with little or no exposition. Where some authors would go on and on, I found Banks to be too light on the background. I realise the books would have likely been much longer had every piece of tech or new planet had been elaborated, and for the most part much of it was minor detail, but it disconnected me from his stories.

(Edit: fixed typo)

[lproven]

Interesting... it was on another site, so I think I should not C&P someone else's words, but someone recently said that they found IMB hard work because there was just too much to absorb: it was so information-rich they found it overwhelming.

There's probably some general point in here about how one thing can't please everyone.

I recently set aside book 2 of N K Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. I may come back to it, but while it is very original, it is at heart a post-apocalyptic fantasy series, and I am just not very into fantasy.

Yes this is a multi-award-winning series that's been praised to the skies.

Similarly several friends were recently delighted to get commemorative editions of John Crowley's Little, Big -- for me, one of the single least enjoyable, most irritating books I've ever forced myself to finish.

[brindy]

I did not enjoy Fifth Season, so never bothered going beyond that.

I didn’t enjoy the frequent switch between first, second and third person and I honestly didn’t think it was that interesting of a story, but for some reason people seem to rave about it. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

[lproven]

Absolutely so, and I relish diversity and that there's lots out there.

The only thing is, it makes me treat reviews and recommendations with great caution. I have some friends who like most of the books I like, but they also like some utter dross, and don't like things I consider wonderful. So one is left to one's own devices.

[gilleain]

Well, there is 'Feersum Endjinn' which you have to tune your ear to the language. 'Excession' had a lot of talk between Minds/Ships which was quite dense.

Also there is a lot of descriptions of hyper-advanced weaponry, drones, etc - even though I enjoy the books, it can be a bit much sometimes.

Of course, most are more readable in the original Marain :)

[lproven]

> Well, there is 'Feersum Endjinn' which you have to tune your ear to the language.

True up to a point. Not limited to Iain M Banks, though: the Bridge does much the same.

The key thing to know is that Banks was a Scot, and sounded like it. (I met him quite a few times.) If you read the phonetic passages aloud in a cod-Scottish accent they are much easier and clearer, IMHO.

> 'Excession' had a lot of talk between Minds/Ships which was quite dense.

I can only say that I did not find that. It's widely rated as many readers' favourite Culture or IMB novel.

I though that, for instance, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep was harder work, and much as I love Vinge's work, I found Rainbows End unreadable and DNF.

> Also there is a lot of descriptions of hyper-advanced weaponry, drones, etc

Personally I lap that stuff up.

> even though I enjoy the books, it can be a bit much sometimes.

Interesting. For me the reverse is true. I find they make most other SF seem a bit dull and lifeless.

[gilleain]

Hah, I hadn't thought of Feersum Endjinn as Scottish, but you might be right. I've lived in both Edinburgh and Glasgow (although quietly, as an Englishman) so perhaps that made it easier for me, at least.

What I liked about Banks' sci-fi is that he generally avoided too much 'info dumping' that some authors suffer from. Like "He was a X'nar'kk from the Blagh'le system ..." for like 3 paragraphs before you get to some actual plot. The only time I saw that a bit was in the Algebraist - funnily enough - in the subplot with Luseferous (diamond teeth, enemy head punching bag). Of course the parts with the Dwellers made up for that ('I do hope you have enough people.').

I guess it comes down to whether all the detail is enjoyable or not. When it's a long description of how a Ship converts the majority of its mass into a swarm of weapon platforms or the rapid sequence of events in a battle between drones over the space of a millisecond then it can be good. If someone was not into that, I guess the extra detail is going to make it worse for them.

[mst]

Feersum Endjinn and The Bridge are fascinating but, yeah, work.

Excession IME is fine for people -if- they've read several other Culture novels first. Having it be somebody's first one tends to be ... suboptimal, at best.

Inversions is also weird in that it feels a bit empty ... -unless- you know to read it as a novel about SC agents, and then it's far more interesting.

The rest of the sci-fi ones seem reasonably grokkable, the non-sci-fi ones really depend on whether you get into the style or not, I think.

[manarth]

Iain Banks, or Iain M Banks?

I've never got on well with the Iain Banks novels, and devoured the Iain M Banks novels.

[mst]

You might like to try Transition - it's not officially an M novel but it's kinda half way between the two.

[lproven]

Agreed.

[lproven]

I am the same. I adore the SF, but don't find the mainstream fiction very interesting.

I started with the Wasp Factory which I used as external reading for my English Literature 'A' level -- I still have my first-edition hardback -- and I moved on to Consider Phlebas and loved all of IMB's stuff. Most of IB's did not move me, although the Bridge and Transitions are interesting.