Hacker News Reader

Comment by iamacyborg | Hacker News Reader

I'm still disappointed that Subterranean Press only published Use of Weapons.

It's a fantastic publication, fwiw.

https://subterraneanpress.com/use-of-weapons/

Possibly my favourite. My dog-eared copy is signed... twice... too. He used to come and read in Windsor, UK on occasion...

my least favorite. The Player of Games, Excession and the Hydrogen Sonata for me.

I'd agree with that - the out of order story line always put me off in Use of Weapons. Seemed unnecessary. As for his best, I'd add Look to Windward to your list. That's a beautiful, moving book.

Yes, it is. The couple going into the sunsets.

a remarkable number of books I've read recently are basically: a present day chapter, then a flashback chapter, eventually leading up to a tense moment in the present day that only makes sense once you have the flashback context.

Gets boring quickly!

Surface Detail for me after Player of Games, though I've read all of his Culture series. The Mind of picket ship has got to be one of my favorite characters in the series.

All by audiobook, which honestly is a completely different experience than a physical read - perhaps I should check out one of his books and re-experience via text?

The ship AIs in the culture are clearly the most interesting characters. The exchanges between the AIs in Excession (the Interesting Times Gang) are absolutely hilarious.

My favourite plot twist in the entire series is our friend wih a need for speed in Excession. That book is one of my all time favourite reads.

Those are like a pleasant stroll in the park. Use of weapons is more like being chased through the park after dark by a madman.

Have a chair. No, sit. We must talk about the Player of Games and your lack of gravitas.

Use of Weapons horrific big moment made it particularly memorable to me and definitely not unusual for Ian M Banks.

Feersum Endjinn differently horrifying with its core premise of an actual hell and heaven existence for beings.

And finally The Wasp Factory is all about a very disturbed individual.

Use of Weapons is my favorite book, and this edition may be well made, but I could not get past its cover - a Soviet submarine from the fifties, why? What does this have to do with the story? This seems like the publisher just did not care. Or is there some explanation in the foreword?

What was special / good about that publication?

It's signed by somebody I can best understand as "Not Ian M. Banks", and the description doesn't really tell me anything about "hardware", nor do they have a photo of the product :-/

Yeah, I mean, Ken McLeod is a decent enough writer, but he's not in the same league as Banks. Can't imagine why I'd want to pay that much for a copy of a Banks book signed by him.

I wouldn't mind an edition of H.P. Lovecraft writings signed by August Derleth, or a Tolkien book signed by C.S. Lewis (or vice versa), and so on. A Discworld novel signed by Neil Gaiman.

If you like Gaiman there are some very nice copies of his works from some smaller fine press publishers.

https://www.arete-editions.com/artists-edition

https://www.lyrasbooks.com/shop/coraline/coraline-lettered-e...

SubPress make very good, high quality books. Sometimes it's just quite nice to own a nicely made physical object for something you deeply enjoy.

I do most of my reading on a high end eink device these days and I still get excited when I can buy sub press epubs. Even their digital releases are great quality.

Right, but at $250, can anybody provide any details of how good these high quality books are?

I don't know if I came off antagonistic, but I'm actually coming from position of genuine curiosity; the webpage linked describes plot of the book (I love Mr. Banks to death and have gifted use of weapons to more than one person, so I'm interested in a good copy:), but it doesn't have a photo of the product, and doesn't tell me where my $250 go to - what is the binding? What is the paper? Is there special typeset? Are there some bespoke illustrations? What is, actually, good about it? (to other people's points, I'm sure Mr. McLeod is a fine writer and a splendid human being, and to some his signature on Iain M. Banks' book adds value, sentimental or otherwise; it does not to me but that's subjective:).

Yeah the product page is quite lacking, normally subpress do a much better job of highlighting what makes one of their editions special

Ken is a lifelong friend of Iain's, and wrote many prefaces and seems to be his kind of literary executor, publishing e.g. early poems as well as sketches related to The Culture:

https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/14019050.friend-kee...

One of my favorite books of all time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com