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Sam

sam@books.theunseen.city

Joined 3 years, 1 month ago

Cooperator, luddite, and Atlantan. Solidarity forever 🌹. When not reading 📚 probably wants to be out swing or blues dancing 🕺, backpacking ⛺🥾, climbing 🧗, or mountain biking 🚵.

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Sam's books

To Read (View all 197)

China Miéville: Perdido Street Station (Hardcover, 2008, ROLYET)
Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky (Hardcover, 2000, Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval)
Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon The Deep (Paperback, 1993, Tor Science Fiction)

Currently Reading

Leonard Nimoy: I am not Spock (1975, Celestial Arts)
Kathryn McCamant, Charles Durrett: Creating Cohousing (Paperback, 2011, New Society Publishers)

Read (View all 125)

Robin Sloan: Sourdough (EBook, 2017, The Text Publishing Company)
Annalee Newitz: Automatic Noodle (2025, Tor Publishing Group)
Iain M. Banks: The Hydrogen Sonata (EBook, 2012, Little, Brown Book Group)

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quoted Excession by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #5)

Iain M. Banks: Excession (Paperback, 1997, Orbit)

Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, …

entered a traveltube with a frostily blue Churt Lyne and was taken to the Forward Docks and a big, brightly lit hangar, where the Psychopath Class ex-Rapid Offensive Unit Frank Exchange of Views was waiting for her. Ulver laughed. ‘It looks,’ she snorted, ‘like a dildo!’ ‘That’s appropriate,’ Churt Lyne said. ‘Armed, it can fuck solar systems.’

— Excession by  (Culture, #5)

quoted Excession by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #5)

Iain M. Banks: Excession (Paperback, 1997, Orbit)

Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, …

when one is able to scrutinise a subject as closely as we are - and to do so with the cross-referential capacity we possess, then the closer one looks into anything the more coincidences one finds, perfectly innocent though they may be.

— Excession by  (Culture, #5)

reviewed The State Of The Art by Iain M. Banks

Iain M. Banks: The State Of The Art (Paperback, 2007, Night Shade Books)

The first ever collection of Iain Banks’s short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, …

Sma is at her best on Earth

While I don't particularly care for some of the other short stories in the collection, the main novella that the volume is named after ("The State of the Art") is one of my favorite in the Culture series. Seeing a culture citizen interact with present day earth makes the commentary (on both the Culture and our own society) all the more impactful.

replied to loppear's status

@loppear@bookwyrm.social Excession was the first one I read IIRC, I really enjoyed it but I don't generally recommend people go in that order! Play of Games is almost certainly my favorite, though. I also really liked Consider Phlebas as an introduction to the world (though I know a lot of people don't).

replied to loppear's status

@loppear@bookwyrm.social Enjoy! I read them for the first time relatively recently, but realized I didn't remember any of them but the first two all that well. Use of Weapons was a lot better than I remembered!