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Excession
Excession | Iain Banks
5 posts | 22 read | 8 to read
Iain M. Banks is a true original, an author whose brilliant speculative fiction has transported us into worlds of unbounded imagination and inimitable revelatory power. Now he takes us on the ultimate trip: to the edge of possibility and to the heart of a cosmic puzzle. . . . Diplomat Byr Genar-Hofoen has been selected by the Culture to undertake a delicate and dangerous mission. The Department of Special Circumstances--the Culture's espionage and dirty tricks section--has sent him off to investigate a 2,500-year-old mystery: the sudden disappearance of a star fifty times older than the universe itself. But in seeking the secret of the lost sun, Byr risks losing himself. There is only one way to break the silence of millennia: steal the soul of the long-dead starship captain who first encountered the star, and convince her to be reborn. And in accepting this mission, Byr will be swept into a vast conspiracy that could lead the universe into an age of peace . . . or to the brink of annihilation.
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imyril
Excession | Iain M. Banks
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#RRSciFiMonth Day 26: Well that sounds ominous

When even the Culture are worried and can be subverted, you know it‘s a problem. I‘m still torn on Excession - I love how the Minds grapple with the problem, but I hate all the vapid human subplots.

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quote
TobeyTheScavengerMonk
Excession | Iain M. Banks
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“A new collection of matter and information to present to the universe and to which it in turn will be presented; different, arguably #equal parts of that great ever-repetitive, ever-changing jurisdiction of being.”

#QuotsyMarch18

Knightingale Congrats? 6y
TobeyTheScavengerMonk @Knightingale Hahaha. Nope, just a picture from Google to go with one of the best descriptions of a baby that I‘ve ever read. My youngest is only 8 months old though so those days aren‘t too far behind us. 6y
Reggie Lol I really thought......I have cousins who are siblings who are 11 months apart. Lolol 6y
66 likes3 comments
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Oryx
Excession | Iain M. Banks
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My work has started a little free library! 😍 I borrowed the tagged book, after hearing the Empire podcast rave about Iain m Banks. Anyone read it?

Cathythoughts Lovely pictures 💕💕💕 6y
LeahBergen That‘s great! 6y
98 likes2 comments
quote
TobeyTheScavengerMonk
Excession | Iain M. Banks
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“To fully appreciate the beauty of the weapon was to admit to a kind of shortsightedness close to blindness, to #confess to a sort of stupidity... The weapon, like anything else, could only finally be judged by the effect it had on others, by the consequences it produced in some outside context, by its place in the rest of the universe. By this measure the love, or just the appreciation, of weapons was a kind of tragedy.”

#QuotsyFeb18

TobeyTheScavengerMonk This quote is technically about interstellar warships, but damn it‘s timely. There wasn‘t space for the whole thing but earlier on it mentions that a fetishization of weaponry is rooted in “insecurity, a sort of childishness” which, yes. 6y
LibrarianRyan @TobeyTheScavengerMonk Tobey now I need to know the first half of the quote. Please???? 6y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @LibrarianRyan I was thinking, now I have to read this book, LOL 6y
Moray_Reads Brilliant quote, brilliant image 💔 6y
TobeyTheScavengerMonk @LibrarianRyan If you google the first several words in quotes the first link takes you to the full quote on Goodreads! 6y
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blurb
TobeyTheScavengerMonk
Excession | Iain M. Banks
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This was the densest of the Culture novels that I've read, and I'm honestly not entirely sure which sides all the AI Minds turned out to be on. But amidst the extradimensional excessions and racist sadistic squid aliens there was a powerful human story of betrayal, violence, and forgiveness that plays out in a #homebythesea (well, a tower by the sea really) in a gargantuan sentient starship, the Sleeper Service. #RockinMay

TobeyTheScavengerMonk Guest appearance by Cosmo Brown. #dogsoflitsy 7y
Jabberwocky I think you are my book-soulmate? 7y
TobeyTheScavengerMonk @Jaberwocky I knew you were out there somewhere! Have you read the Culture books? 7y
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Jabberwocky @TobeyTheScavengerMonk I read the first two a couple of summers ago (I didn't sleep for a few weeks cause I couldn't put them down) but I ran out of speed in the middle of the weapons one. I really should go back and finish them. 7y
TobeyTheScavengerMonk @Jaberwocky I'm through the first 5. They tend to take me awhile but the sheer number of crazy science-fictional ideas per page is insane. Loved Phlebas and Player of Games so hard. 7y
Cinfhen You may have lost me at giant sadistic alien squid👽🐙 7y
TobeyTheScavengerMonk @Cinfhen They're just regular-sized sadistic squid aliens. They're called the Affront because literally ever alien race they encounter is offended by them. 7y
Cinfhen 😂😂😂oh, they're regular sized?!? That changes everything! 7y
Texreader @Cinfhen you guys are killing me! 😂😂😂 7y
Cinfhen @Texreader at some point, I have to hold back and recognize, I may not be the right reader for the particular book...case in point☝🏾 7y
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