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Comment by automatic6131 | Hacker News Reader

>In the end, I didn’t love Use of Weapons,

Absolutely no surprises there. I've read the entire culture series several times. I've read every entry in it at least twice, some more than that. Except Use of Weapons. I only need to read about the "chair" once.

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"But such consummate skill, such ability, such adaptability, such numbing ruthlessness, such a use of weapons when anything could become a weapon..."

I didn't say it wasn't great :)

Sorry - was just taking the opportunity to quote UoW. :-)

> I only need to read about the "chair" once.

In that case you probably won't like the "violin" in Charles Stross's 'The Annihilation Score' [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files#The_Annihila...

What about the descriptions of Hell in surface detail?

But Use of Weapons only truly shows its genius when you read it again and recognize all the hints that were there in plain sight but you didn't understand on the first reading!

It's the best or at least top three of the series. Maybe I'm desensitized but there hardly is anything gratuitous in the book.

This debate is endless and varies by personal taste and what about the novels interests you. Use of Weapons is in the bottom half for me right alongside the one the author liked, Consider Phlebas (though I liked the latter more after reading the rest of the series).

It's still my favorite series books though, so don't get me wrong.

Things might be horrific even if they aren't gratuitous or even described explicitly in a book.

But does that make the book bad? Makes it much better IMO, especially if you want literature and not pulp.

I don't think anyone called the book bad. I just know that I'm quite keen not to read it again because of the horrible things in it. It might be well written but maybe I don't feel like those concepts going into my head.

It's a subjective thing. Just like which Culture novel is the best.

For me what didn't work is the psychology of the book. I'm a big fan of Iain Banks, and I've read Use of Weapons twice, and both times it left me unsatisfied. I'm always surprised when someone says it's their favourite Culture book.

Spoilers ahead: The character of Eletiomel was so thinly drawn that when the conflict with Zakalwe occurs, it's really not clear what his motivations are aside from helping win a revolutionary war. And he commits an evil, barbaric act completely out of the blue, suggesting he's a calculating psychopath willing to murder an innocent person (his own lover, no less) in an apparently very elaborate, premeditated way which also happens "off-screen". And then we are supposed to buy the idea that he was so traumatised by his own actions (not actually a psychopath, then) that he adopted a new identity and spent the rest of his life mentally suppressing his past and also somehow atoning for it? I'm not buying any of it.

I still remember the chair.

It's the upholstery I remember the most.

My girlfriend at the time was a redhead, and I remember glancing over at her and thinking "I'm not gonna peek under the bedcovers for a while, lest it reminds of that goddamn chair..."

I'm don't remember the chair but I have a queasy feeling that I've deliberately repressed thinking about the the chair.

I agree with GP that I don't want to reread certain thing regardless of how well written they are.

> Except Use of Weapons. I only need to read about the "chair" once.

I haven't read that one, but I can imagine it's something horrible.

Ian Banks must have been a kind of fucked up dude, given he invented some particularly dark stuff.

His first book, Wasp Factory[1] is also a game changer. His is a dark world right from the off! :D

1. It's non-sci-fi so published under the name Iain Banks rather than Iain M. Banks.

I remember Banks commenting at a talk that someone made the "Ian Banks must have been a kind of fucked up dude" comment at a book signing where his mother was present and she commented that "Ian was always a lovely wee boy".

He always seemed like a really nice guy when I've heard him speak in person.

> Ian Banks must have been a kind of fucked up dude, given he invented some particularly dark stuff.

_Contextually_, I've seen a lot worse. Banks doesn't glorify this sort of thing, generally; bad things are done by bad people. (Almost to a slightly preachy extent; the elite of the Empire of Azad watching literal torture porn seems like _slightly_ over-doing it on the whole "have I mentioned that they are bad?" thing...) It's when an author has the _hero_ pulling out fingernails that I start to get a bit worried.

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