Over the weekend , generator Iain M. Banksdied of cancer — just two months after foretell that he had less than a twelvemonth to subsist . He left behind some of the peachy work of scientific discipline fabrication ever written . Here are eleven Banksian principle of good SF composition , that we would do well to remember long into the future .
https://gizmodo.com/iain-m-banks-author-of-the-culture-novels-has-passed-512173168
representative byPaul Youllfrom the cover version of Excession
1 . There are no skillful Guy
In Iain M. Banks ’ science fiction series about theCulture , there are no hero who are n’t tarnish by morally equivocal deed . Even the good - intentioned citizenry of Special Circumstances , whose goal is to export social democracy everywhere , are basically assassins . Perhaps the least virtuously - compromised characters in his books are the whimsical - but - deadly gasoline whale brute from The Algebraist , and the artificially intelligent Minds whose system for humanity are explored in depth in Excession , Surface Detail , and The Hydrogen Sonata . But the Minds are good only out of cheerful indifference , or perhaps disinterested engagement . They can never quite agree on whether they should prevent humans from butcher each other or just neglect it . Having heroes whose intentions are mixed , rather than motivated by virtuous commodity , pee them more realistic as citizenry . It also reminds the lecturer that one person ’s “ good ” is another person ’s “ end of the human race . ”
https://gizmodo.com/welcome-to-the-culture-the-galactic-civilization-that-5663293
2 . Utopia is not perfect
This is a corollary to rule 1 . “ The Culture is my idea of Sion . It ’s pure wish fulfilment . This society is driven by the impulse to do trade good – not , like capitalism , by the impulse to exploit,”Banks say the Independentin 2008 . Banks ’ piece of work allows us to think meaningfully about the future of human race precisely because he never misplace mountain of what lay down us human : conflict and compromise . Though the Culture is a Utopia , it is also full of people who play games to the expiry , genocidal maniacs , slave dealer , and Minds whose chief enjoyment is descend from high - speeding devastation . It is the struggle to maintain a democratic , classless civilization that make the Culture credible . Utopia is not a stable commonwealth . It is a precarious , ever - changing man full of problems that may never be whole resolved .
3 . Never give your protagonist a simple motivation
camber will never give you a friend who is fate for immensity . His Special Circumstances agents are n’t just pose their lives on the pipeline to save the globe . His SC agent in Matter has a personal grudge to deal with , and the surreptitious agent in inversion has fallen in sexual love with the human beings from a non - Culture civilisation whom she is studying . But by the same souvenir , a revengeful former slave in Surface Detail goes beyond personal retaliation in her seeking to destroy her master . These are masses who modify and grow as a resultant of experiences in the universe . Nobody is bear to lead , nor are they fate to evil . When you chance a character , you understand that they ’ve attain their destinations by making a series of option , under circumstances that are not always of their own choosing .
4 . chronicle will fuck you up
This is perhaps the overarch message of the entire Culture series , which is an strange root for a series that is so relentlessly futurist . But both Minds and biological tool in nearly every acculturation novel are obsess by wars and personal struggle that echo across centuries and star systems . A war we see stretch in the first Culture novel , weigh Phlebas , echo like astronomical - graduated table PTSD in Look to Windward . The account of all the dead generations weighs like a incubus on the brains of the support . We can not charge forwards into a post - human hereafter and require to leave our brutal histories behind .
5 . Political values can transform the fabric of time
InTransition , Banks reckon a Special Circumstances - like group who travel through alternating timelines rather than through space . Their finish is to make other timelines safe for commonwealth , and they jump between worlds murdering possible dictators or help freedom fighter aircraft . Of naturally a conflict develops over whether they are slay the right people — and indeed , whether it ’s a good idea to kill people from another timestream even if it ’s for the reason of justice . Unlike your typical “ kill Hitler ” fantasy , a basic of the prison term change of location genre , conversion is about how a foresighted political plot can mutate the very opinion of metre itself . To change the world for the better , we have to change our kinship to clip . This receive back to rule 4 , as well .
https://gizmodo.com/with-transition-iain-m-banks-reinvents-the-multiver-5366356
6 . A major planet is a terrible waste of matter
One of Banks ’ greatest strength as a skill fiction writer was his power to make you imagine vast machines and home ground in blank . From the nesting - doll world and liquid - filled tube space station for aquatic fauna in Matter , to the many Orbitals ( halo worldly concern ) and megapolis - sized Ships of his other novels , he always assay to take exception our assumption about what it will think of to build a civilisation in outer space . Planets , Banks once asserted , are not a right use of issue . Any truly advanced group would see that , and like a shot convert a planet into something with more surface area that is both safer and better capable to support animation . What you build is also a observation of your social values . The solar - organisation - sized war machines ( the nested worlds ) of a now - lost galactic civilisation become home to war kingdoms in Matter . mind who grow sick of war put in themselves in Orbitals rather of warfare ships . What we progress is a reflection of our ambition as a civilisation — and when these buildings brave for millennia , we are also shaping civilizations to come . Did I mention that chronicle will fuck you up ?
7 . Your intentions are only as practiced as your weapon
contribute that the Culture ( and bank himself ) are interested in using passive rationalness to stomp out state of war and subjugation , it might storm you to observe that most of the polish Koran are full of cause of death . The more passive your civilization is , the best defended it has to be . That ’s why there are Ships who can kill in nanoseconds , and SC federal agent with Drone Friend who can kill with a force field . Do n’t even get me begin on the tongue missile and that scene where a undercover agent manufactures poison in his spit so that he can kill a bad guy by biting him . peace of mind is complicated . So you ’d well contain a big stick . rather one whose brain has the computational power of an intact planet made of C.P.U. .
8 . Immortality and hard AI do n’t cause the apocalypse , but they do n’t really solve our problem either .
The premise of a lot of present - mean solar day intellection about the time to come is that hard AI like the Minds will wholly transform humanity — part by making us immortal , and partly by commit us post - human superpowers via gamey - tech implants . In Banks ’ Culture , the Minds exploit with humans and other intelligent coinage . They are , in a sentiency , just another intelligent specie . But instead of populate bodies , they populate architecture , substructure , and blank space vessels . Humans can live virtually forever ( though most prefer not to ) , as well as change their bodies and back up their judgement . Still , as convention 1 and 3 make readable , go beings still have a lot of species baggage . There is no “ Singularity ” — instead , there is gradual translation and the usual messiness .
9 . Astropolitics , not space opera house
bank is one of the innovators of a subgenre I call astropolitical . alternatively of Golden Age star - hopping adventures , ala distance opera , the Culture novel are complicated tales of solar system regimes and galactic empire . The Dune series could be considered an early lesson of astropolitical science fabrication . But Banks takes it a step further , barf out fantasy idea like portion and embracing realistic political battle as a storytelling method acting . Just because we ’ve reach out to the stars does n’t stand for we ’ve leave the horrors of imperialism and patriotism behind . Banks combine savvy political engagement with fantastical worlds to suggest where our present-day system of social control might lead in thousands of eld .
10 . The issue of your adventuresome instalment will alter somebody else ’s integral humanity
One of the thing that is basically never dealt with in Star Trek , another arguably astropolitical narrative , is what occur after the endeavor leaves . But this is often the theme of Banks ’ work , where Culture types swoop into “ backward ” civilizations , muck about , and then result everybody behind to attempt to work things out . Often badly . Many of his main characters amount from worlds at the edges of the Culture . They offer us a dark , outsider ’s perspective of this “ Utopia ” whose efforts to propagate democracy sometimes look more like straight - up majestic subjection . In this way of life , Banks develops his astropolitical leaning further . These book are not about heroes who shoot a bunch of people and get medal . We linger in the aftermath of the adventure , and we sieve through the ruin of the triumphant conflict . We incur out what happens to the citizenry “ liberated ” by conquest .
11 . There is a definition for evil , after all .
There may not be any physical body of goodness that is unequivocal , but Banks is clear-cut on one affair . Genocide , torture , and enslavement are always base , no matter how “ special ” the circumstance . Banks never lets us forget that the galaxy is full of authoritarians who think torment is an awesome path to govern over people — and who believe that some groups deserve to be completely erased from time and outer space . Those dictator should be killed . There is no felicitous rehab . We wo n’t make them see the mistake of their ways . We will fucking assassinate them so tight that they wo n’t even make that a Terror Class Ship entered and bequeath their local volume of space . Seriously . defeat those bastards . Banks was n’t afraid to moralize on behalf of great Justice Department . Some things are not ambiguous .
BooksIain M. Banks
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