Finished Iain M. Banks’ Matter last night. Probably my favorite display of writing virtuosity so far. The sheer amount of world-building crammed into a single story... and literally into a single world. Wow. The shellworld idea is a sci-fi narrative engineering masterpiece.
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Vernon Vinge (Deepness in the Sky) is the only thing I’ve read that seems to be imagined on a similarly lavish scale, and evoke operatic space of similar narrative proportions. Both are galaxy-sized stories for galaxy-sized canvasses. They don’t feel like stretched planet-scale.
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By contrast, Asimov’s foundation, despite being otherwise pioneering in the genre, feels like planet-scale narrative stretched to fit galaxy-scale canvas, and the pixelation shows. It is self-admittedly just the decline-and-fall-of-Roman-empire transposed to a space-operatic key.
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Hyperion (I only read one volume) had the potential despite starting with Canterbury tales sub-planet scale inspiration, but I felt lost its way. Didn’t feel inspired to finish.
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You gotta get to Use of Weapons ASAP I’ve never been more hurt by a story So good
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I have a love/hate relationship with Use of Weapons for this exact reason
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My favourite ever sci-fi series
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Player of Games is my favorite of the bunch.
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Enjoy!
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And then move onto Excession.
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My favourite book. I’ve reread it several times and I’m still sure I’m missing half of it.
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Use of Weapons