THE HYDROGEN SONATA PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Iain M. Banks | 640 pages | 09 Oct 2013 | Little, Brown Book Group | 9780356501499 | English | London, United Kingdom The Hydrogen Sonata PDF Book I think I was mostly right. It goes some way towards preventing readers from taking the Culture as an endorsement of the American neo- conservatives Banks loathes, but it does so by reducing the distance between the Culture as an entity and present countries, particularly America. That those who have long thought themselves your friends and allies—. Along the way there's a variety of stuff that's seen throughout the series that's fun - lots of inter-Mind and internal Mind conversations and rivalries and multiple amazing landscapes and cultures and aliens described in loving detail. It's sad coming to the end of the series which I've enjoyed a lot even when I've criticised it , especially knowing that it's the end because the brilliant author has died. The Hydrogen Sonata is a Culture novel, part of that vast and complex tapestry of future history with which Banks revitalized the subgenre of space opera and, in large measure, helped to make SF in general fun again. The Culture citizen does not own everything in common with their fellow citizens; they merely can afford to own whatever they want. This is a very fun book, from the setpieces to the humor. The Zihdren-Remnant , what is left of an older species that Sublimed before the Culture was formed, send an envoy to confess a long- kept secret before the Gzilt depart but a Gzilt warship intercepts and destroys their ship several weeks before the Sublimation is due to take place in order to preserve that secret. So where does the colour start to fade for me? Sonata was published in early October, Cossont and the Mistake Not But then, perhaps this mirroring is less surprising when one considers that the two novels' subject matters are themselves mirror images. One comes for the incitement to imagine, and — except on the political front, where Ken MacLeod is much better — Banks gives you that in spades here. So really the book must be about Banks, and the Subliming of the Gzilt must be about his own impending death? From the standpoint of ideas, Hydrogen Sonata strikes me as the most articulate of the last six Culture novels and the only one that presents a viable argument against the worldview of the first three. Looking back over the Culture novels, I find it a bit unfortunate that he never bothered to ask any questions about how the Culture was actually run. Other editions. Spoilers ahead: 1 He mentions the ideas of using "other cultures" that had no ethical issues with simulating thinking beings down to the atomic level - but that goes nowhere. What do you guys think? I understand that such. The Hydrogen Sonata of the title is a MacGuffin : a fictional work of music which is woven into the plot. And yet The Hydrogen Sonata is suffused with death, with questions about the meaning of life, of how and when to leave it, and with anxiety about what comes after it. Bang; the plot of The Hydrogen Sonata just unfolded in my head. I love all of the Culture novels, but some are better than others. The bowl was an oasis of warmth, moisture and atmosphere on that cold, dry, airless surface; within its gauzy layers of containment it held the sort of parks, lakes, carefully proportioned buildings and lush but managed tracts of vegetation favoured by many types of humanoids. Really, the only Culture novels that might be said to be truly focused are The Player of Games and Look to Windward , and they're constructed around a single, time-sensitive mission. It is an SF construct that directly mimics religious mysteries. Initially I was concerned that I'd made a mistake - old problems were all present and correct: infelicitous sentences, meandering plot with little focus and too many protagonists, nothing really new by way of themes, too much swearing humour. Art may become one of the last rare resources for a highly advanced civilization and it might move more towards big history and metascience, including as many elements and innuendos as possible to be as beautiful as insightful. Consider Phlebas was set during the Culture-Idiran war, where the Idirans refused to renounce their religion and set themselves on a self-destruct course against the Culture. But it did take me ten years to get through his SF so it'll probably be a long process as well. If you try to read it as a spy thriller, it will probably be an unsatisfying disaster. Oh yes, the end is coming for the whole Gzilt civilization. Banks must have read Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder , because The Sublime comes across as "the other universe" in that book: a place where the core automata rules allow for indefinite, deliberate, willful expansion of Self and Civilization. The Culture novels which are, truly speaking, space opera rather than sci-fi are clearly the product of someone who grew up on Star Wars, Star Trek, -- someone who also happens to be one hell of a writer. Even slightly spoiler-like and disturbing. Ablate itself was anything but natural. It decided to make the initial approach itself:. Why really are you bothering with all this? As always, Banks mixes humor, action, and fascinating explorations of big ideas. They married in Hawaii in In fact, Banks wound up glossing over the foundation of the Culture in a way that made it seem as though nobody really cared about someone who was at the scene when galactic history was made. Why did I have to dig so much into what Sonata is about? But HS is a snapshot of that process in a moment of being hard on itself, of disenchantment? The Hydrogen Sonata Writer If you want vicarious joy ride alongside kilometer long cocksure cock shaped high tech super-weapons, then this book delivers perhaps as good as Banks has ever delivered and it's just as good for an adrenalin buzz as watching say the Avengers. Instead, after his proxy Agansu predictably fails, Banstegeyn basically just shrugs and says "Meh A bit of time travel is mixed in and shows how interesting it could get. Of the other ship, apart from a new set of already fading folds of light in the skies above Ablate, there was no trace whatsoever. Mortality and the avoidance thereof have always been major themes in the Culture novels. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. It was a better novel that Matter , Transitions , or Surface Detail , but Banks is turning into a one-trick pony here. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable or even inevitable attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. That that book has ended up being The Hydrogen Sonata only makes it more so. Nobody who was bad gets justice. I've read through the whole series of Culture novels over the past 6 months, starting the next one after I've finished the last. Several years ago I decided not to read any more Culture novels. Iain M. We will only exist to the extent that our ideas and personalities are absorbed into the new machine consciousnesses. It's a time of celebration, of settling accounts, and accordingly the remnants of the long-Sublimed Zihdren, a race who shepherded the Gzilt onto the galactic stage, send an emissary to reveal that the Book of Truth, the religious text which has strongly shaped the Gzilt's worldview, was actually an experiment by a Zhidren scientist. What annoyed me about the Hydrogen Sonata is that it's supposed to be a story about an advanced civilisation that was founded on a lie. Not entirely clear how they make that work, by the way -- doesn't it undermine the implicit rationale of the Culture? Banks: ebullience of imagination. That statement applies well enough to the novel itself: it delights in spectacular cosmic-scale fuck-ups. After all, despite these nitpicks Player of Games is very good and someday I will argue that Use of Weapons is a genuinely great novel. In fact, Mr. Retrieved 2 December As with his friend Ken MacLeod another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. Finding reasons to go on? The Gzilt political manoeuvrings felt pretty absurd for such an ancient, powerful, and developed species; it's machinations felt akin to a medieval power play rather then a scenario where constant sur and sou-valence would be the norm. Everyone has the same concerns with memorialising themselves, somehow proving they existed in the Real. It's been a significant shock to the system as well for his multitude of fans, a This has been a hard review to write. And so all the Gzilt have settled down to do exactly what you'd expect of a Culture-level civilization on such a momentous occasion: one last round of cocktail parties, hiking vacations, and orgies as suits one's preferred level of debauchery , while receiving congratulatory mes The great and glorious Gzilt civilization is about to Sublime. We await it. Looking back over the Culture novels, I find it a bit unfortunate that he never bothered to ask any questions about how the Culture was actually run.