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Iain Banks (1) (1954–2013)

Autor(a) de The Wasp Factory

Para outros autores com o nome Iain Banks, veja a página de desambiguação.

Iain Banks (1) foi considerado como pseudónimo de Iain M. Banks.

25+ Works 32,431 Membros 601 Reviews 247 Favorited

Obras de Iain Banks

Foram atribuídas obras ao autor também conhecido como Iain M. Banks.

The Wasp Factory (1984) 7,059 cópias
The Crow Road (1992) 3,199 cópias
Against a Dark Background (1993) 2,926 cópias
Complicity (1993) 2,452 cópias
The Bridge (1986) 2,167 cópias
The Business (1999) 1,941 cópias
Dead Air (2002) 1,698 cópias
A Song of Stone (1997) 1,695 cópias
Whit (1995) 1,681 cópias
Walking on Glass (1985) 1,569 cópias
Espedair Street (1987) 1,434 cópias
The Steep Approach to Garbadale (2007) 1,358 cópias
Canal Dreams (1989) 1,227 cópias
Stonemouth (2012) 701 cópias

Associated Works

Foram atribuídas obras ao autor também conhecido como Iain M. Banks.

Granta 43: Best of Young British Novelists 2 (1993) — Contribuinte — 177 cópias
Dark: Stories of Madness, Murder and the Supernatural (2000) — Contribuinte — 57 cópias
The Crow Road [1996 TV miniseries] (1996) — Original novel — 14 cópias
Complicity [2000 film] (2000) — Original novel — 4 cópias

Etiquetado

1001 (114) 1001 books (114) 20th century (170) British (137) British literature (80) contemporary (198) contemporary fiction (212) crime (152) ebook (154) family (126) fantasy (174) fiction (4,370) general fiction (119) goodreads (124) hardcover (78) horror (299) Iain Banks (102) literary fiction (122) literature (156) murder (119) mystery (182) non-fiction (79) novel (700) own (108) owned (120) paperback (89) read (470) science fiction (859) Scotland (803) Scottish (449) Scottish fiction (131) Scottish literature (156) sf (275) signed (78) space opera (74) thriller (241) to-read (1,249) travel (97) UK (109) unread (219)

Conhecimento Comum

Membros

Discussions

Group Reda, February 2022: The Crow Road em 1001 Books to read before you die (Março 2022)
Group Read: The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks em 75 Books Challenge for 2013 (Agosto 2013)

Resenhas

My first Scottish book. Sadly, not good. The setting and characters definitely worked. However, the entire story is dull and worthless. Another one of those "waiting" stories. The main character does a bunch of similar random tasks all day, but nothing happens. The last third of the book clarifies that the only thing that is really important is that the brother is coming. Is that sufficient for the story? Absolutely not. I would recommend someone abridging the book down to a very short, 20-page story. It still would not be very good, but short stories generally do not have that requirement.
Will still read an Iain Banks science-fiction book, because they are highly recommend.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
MXMLLN | outras 199 resenhas | Jan 12, 2024 |
An enjoyable read that doesn't need to be revisited I guess
 
Marcado
sarcher | outras 43 resenhas | Dec 27, 2023 |
This isn't really my kinda book. I don't generally like books that are "snapshot of a period of time in someone's life" types of stories, which is what this one is. Also, not so enjoyable reading about torturing animals and killing children. No thanks.
 
Marcado
PurplOttr | outras 199 resenhas | Dec 1, 2023 |
This one's exquisitely written and full of interesting ideas, which is more-or-less what you can expect from an Iain M. Banks book. But for whatever reason, "Against a Dark Background" failed to hold my attention like the Culture novels I've read, though I did manage to finish it. As usual, it's an example of the shiny, widescreen version of SF. The impossibly skilled and sexy Lady Sharrow, a high-born noble in a universe that's a strange mix of the futuristic and the atavistic, must flee a religion that's made her death central to their belief system while she hunts amusingly strange artifacts for fun, for immense profits, and sometimes for her family's very survival. Fantasy tropes -- castles, hermits, swords, and mounts -- pop up here and there while the lady and her chemically-bonded band of adventures confront all manner of dangers. The author doesn't skip out on the blood and pain -- there are some simply excruciating deaths here -- and he constructs some lovely set pieces, most memorably the one that describes the minute-by-minute uncertainties of a crash-landing on a snowbound planet. To show that he's not the average paperback writer, Banks then seamlessly incorporates the long-term effects of this event into his character and narrative. And then there's also the curious pull of the artifacts themselves, specifically that of a lazy gun, a weapon that seems to fool the laws of physics while exerting an inexplicable psychological pull on those who seek it. There's a forest planet and a city built on barges and a nascent religion that hopes to conquer the entire system, just in case you needed more.

But I also thought that there was something missing here, among all the impeccably wrought sentences that drape themselves comfortably across the page. Maybe the fact that the world that Banks describes here isn't as cleanly futuristic as that of his Culture novels that got to me. Set on a star system located by unlucky chance thousands of light years from any others, this world seems to feel the weight of its own limitations. Sometimes the medieval throwbacks or anachronisms suggested that something had gotten stuck, both in the book and in the civilization it describes. Or it's the lack of the Culture itself, that protean, hard-to-define organism that provides a convenient thread through Banks's other works. Or maybe it's just that there's far too much of "Against a Dark Background": while it has its charms, any book, however charming, might struggle to sustain itself over nearly eight hundred pages. Or maybe it's just the fact that Lady Sharrow fulfils every science fiction's checklist a bit too perfectly. Lasers, castles, spaceships, motorcycles, and hot, chemically engineered sex? I'm glad nobody saw me reading this one on the bus.

If you're a big space opera fan, it's possible that none of this will really bother you. But I read Banks between literary novels, and so this one got a bit too purple for me at times, not to mention a bit too long. It's not bad book in its genre, and, for two lousy bucks at the Kindle Store, I certainly got my money's worth. But in my opinion, "Against a Dark Background" just isn't the strongest thing that this author ever wrote.
… (mais)
½
 
Marcado
TheAmpersand | outras 43 resenhas | Aug 18, 2023 |

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Associated Authors

Jonathan Trigg Contributor
Emmet Byrnes Contributor
Tina L. Thurston Contributor
Johan Vandewalle Contributor
James Bonsall Contributor
Richard Strachan Contributor
Peter Harrington Contributor
Alastair H. Fraser Contributor
Vaclav Matousek Contributor
William O. Frazer Contributor
Patricia Carman Contributor
David Sneddon Contributor
Damian Shiels Contributor
Lon E. Bulgrin Contributor
Aidan O'Sullivan Contributor
Pádraig Lenihan Contributor
Derek Allsop Contributor
Tom Fisher Contributor
Peter Doyle Contributor
Peter Barton Contributor
Conor Brady Contributor
Martin Brown Contributor
John Carman Contributor
Gabriel Cooney Contributor
Iain Ferris Contributor
Walter Rapp Cover photographer
Glenn Foard Contributor
Gavin Hughes Contributor
J. W. Brown Contributor
David G. Passmore Contributor
P. D. F. Kingston Contributor
Stephan Harrison Contributor
Nicolas K. Grguric Contributor
B. Hammett Contributor
James E. Snead Contributor
N. A. Roberts Contributor
Alex Silberstein Cover designer
Adrian T. Myers Contributor
Peter Kenny Narrator
Peter Brown Cover artist, Illustrator
Fred Marcellino Cover artist
Dorothy Carico Smith Cover designer
Anu Partanen Translator
Mark Salwowski Cover artist
Paul Youll Cover artist
Tom Canty Cover artist
Johanna Mo Translator
Robert Vernooy Translator
Simon Denton Photographer
Ute Thiemann Translator
Topi Makkonen Translator
Leslie Howell Cover artist
Lisa Coleman Narrator
Bascove Cover artist
Martin Gray Photographer

Estatísticas

Obras
25
Also by
6
Membros
32,431
Popularidade
#598
Avaliação
½ 3.6
Resenhas
601
ISBNs
352
Idiomas
22
Favorito
247

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