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Look To Windward de Iain M. Banks
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Look To Windward (original: 2000; edição: 2000)

de Iain M. Banks (Autor)

Séries: The Culture (7)

MembrosResenhasPopularidadeAvaliação médiaConversas / Menções
4,088762,912 (3.95)1 / 97
It was one of the less glorious incidents of the Idiran wars that led to the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported. Now, 800 years later, the light from the first of those deaths has reached the Culture's Masaq' Orbital. A Chelgrian emissary is dispatched to the Culture.
Membro:ellie.t
Título:Look To Windward
Autores:Iain M. Banks (Autor)
Informação:Orbit (2000), Edition: Export ed, 368 pages
Coleções:Sua biblioteca
Avaliação:
Etiquetas:Nenhum(a)

Informações da Obra

Look to Windward de Iain M. Banks (2000)

  1. 40
    Excession de Iain M. Banks (Mind_Booster_Noori)
    Mind_Booster_Noori: This book can work loosely as a sequel to Excession. Of course that there's a lot more in it than that...
  2. 30
    The Algebraist de Iain M. Banks (dkelly304)
    dkelly304: Gas Giant Creatures, Ancient Air-Based Intelligences, that don't bother anyone and have existed for billions of years. Sounds like the the behemothaur Yoleus in Look to Windward. Might also enjoy the Saga of the Seven Suns (the Hydrogues, Gas giant bad-guys). I love the Culture Novels SO much so I may be twisted to recommend more Banks, when reading... Banks. But honestly if you really do like the range and depth of the story telling, and this story, is meta-told by a character from the story... if you like that a bit more it gives Banks greater freedom from Character Perspective when he narrates and allows him to bring a universe much like the Culture's back to life in 1 book, weaving all the nuances of almost a dozen Culture Novels into a new pattern and then deftly anchoring the story line into yet another complicated weave of flashbacks, character flaws and subtle, underplayed pivoting climaxes in the plot that make the reader double guess what was just read, and attempt to re-read back. I say re-read back, and get the e-book version to accompany your Audio Rendition - I have the "Recorded Books Collection" version on audio and I find that the Non-Audible Style is a fresh take (even if it's a retro throw back to the 90's style recording), gives some of the more "british" aspects of Banks's style a more familiar and easily absorbed format for the American Reader/Listener. As always Bank's need for a character (or an aspect of all of them) to be at some level, a nuisance, a spy, a bad lover with emotional baggage, once the opposite sex, several thousand years of age, in league with the enemy, using massively advanced technique technology and doing it with real gravitas when the time comes to deliver the written bomb that is the true climax to the plot in any great Banks novel. don't leave out long lists of possibles and extra things that come at the end of paragraphs - the long iterations of different like things that comically represents some aspect of the far flung society we are being told about. It is done as much to amuse us, as to bring in some of the well-known, the familiar idiocy of our current society out into the beyond in time so that when we hear of it again in story, our minds and hearts can believe it could really be so, just that much more. For those who didn't enjoy this book as much as the culture novels, try it in Audio, or a Written Format other than e-Book - format makes a difference, I could not follow this book when it was in print, Audio Format is the only thing I was able to absorb (then I list it in my top 10 non-series Sci-Fi Novel List_#6 when I write this). -Super Future Enthusiast and Sci-fi nerd novel reader extraordinaire… (mais)
  3. 10
    Childhood's End de Arthur C. Clarke (AlexanderM)
    AlexanderM: These works are both incredible pieces of literature that fit together nicely. Childhood's End and Look to Windward both have a similar view on humans as a species. Despite the fact that one is told from the humans' point of view, and the other is told from an alien races', they both give an interesting take on the future of humankind. Both are amazing pieces of literature, and I highly recommend reading them.… (mais)
  4. 13
    The Golden Transcendence: Or, The Last of the Masquerade de John C. Wright (bertilak)
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» Veja também 97 menções

Inglês (68)  Francês (3)  Espanhol (2)  Italiano (2)  Finlandês (1)  Todos os idiomas (76)
Mostrando 1-5 de 76 (seguinte | mostrar todas)
It is hard. I read it almost month ago and writing anything only now. At first I was really confused, everything seemed so simple and plain (that is for a Culture level, which is pretty high overall). I still not entirely convinced I understood that revenge story. Was it really that simple? Or was it just a backdrop for the interesting thought - that there is no real distinction between thought and emotion on any level of intelligence. And that probably someday in future that distinction will be erased on language level. It doesn't matter how many senses you have, how big is your processing power, how much you can remember and how strong, experienced or needed you are - emotions (or their equivalent) still will be inseparable from intelligence and both of them will define your existence. ( )
  WorkLastDay | Dec 17, 2023 |
I sort of have a problem with the main backstory premise to the book, this spoiler reveals a lot of stuff that's revealed slowly over the course of the book So the Culture is considered responsible for the caste civil war. They did this by influencing politics so a caste-ending politician became president, which led to a gradual but almost complete destruction of the caste system. Then the former lower castes just tried to kill the higher castes suddenly for some reason just at the moment the caste system was pretty nearly abolished. One of the members of the species suggests it was "natural" for it to happen because they're a "predator species". Yet it turns out that the two sides immediately make peace when it turns out the Culture had influenced things. The only reason the Culture are considered responsible for it is because they bribed parliamentarians to vote for this guy for president. The sudden civil war was entirely started by Chelgrians, apparently based on a sort of inevitability and their own plans.

So like 1) In what way is it the culture's responsibility?
2) Why is the ending of the caste system presented as inevitably resulting in terrible violence worse than the caste system itself?

I don't want to be too like "well this doesn't follow my communist morality so it's bad" but it does feel like a very strange moral tale to have the oppressed become atrociously violent suddenly for no good reason and for it to be the wrong thing to have helped them at all. But even if we accept this, it seems strange to blame the Culture given that this was apparently something a significant amount of the population immediately took to. Although the Culture influenced things somewhat, apparently if the caste-enders had come to power "naturally" the same thing would have happened. If the politicians or even a decent amount of the population had a serious investment in the caste system they could easily have stopped things getting that far in the first place (although again that'd be bizarre, morally). So if there were no Culture intervention at all, either 1) the same thing would have happened, possibly over a longer timescale, given there seemed to be widespread agreement on what was done up until the war and no major pushback 2) the caste supporters would have objected, taken up a stronger position, and probably catalysed a civil war anyway which would probably have been just as bloody except with the oppressed castes in a far weaker position.

Of course, this is me being silly to a certain extent. Obviously it's fiction, you have a certain set up, and it's not pushing a super simplistic "oppressed people are bad for resisting" thing exactly. It's an attempt to set up a decent moral dilemma, and obviously if it's a moral dilemma there's no starting position that will totally satisfy me because it's always going to be unpleasant in some way! I mean like as a general opponent of most "intervention" in a real life context it's kind of weird of me to be defending the Culture in the book, even if it's not really like real interventions - we "know" the Culture is far more "good" than any state in real life, even with the bad stuff it does sometimes. The Chelgrian intervention also had very little benefit to them - in real life the bad consequences are often down to continuing oppression to benefit those who intervened.

But it's near impossible to create a close to real scenario in the Culture universe I think. I definitely appreciate the effort and think he did a great job - that I'm writing all these words about it is a good indication I think what he's written is worth thinking seriously about, heh. It's a pretty great thing to do to try and write a book about intervention like this - even if I don't think the premise is perfect to talk about the problems and consequences of "humanitarian intervention" even with seemingly "perfect" societies is good.

Although I did feel the civil war was intended to evoke memories of the Rwandan genocide, which seems kind of dodgy?


The book is good in general. It's full of descriptions of the Orbital, which are amazing although I'm bad at picturing stuff from descriptions and if you're better at that than me you'll probably like it even more. The truly alien environment of the airsphere was great to read about too. The ending is good - I did think (ending spoiler) that the wormholes would have been planted by people from the Culture but I thought it was because they truly believed the Culture deserved revenge taken against it for what happened... ah well Anyway yeah it's good ( )
  tombomp | Oct 31, 2023 |
A slow start, but yet another great story set in the Culture universe. ( )
  zeh | Jun 3, 2023 |
141
  freixas | Mar 31, 2023 |
I thought in the end that they were going to reveal that taking credit for the war was a lie, that they made themselves a scapegoat because they knew it would stop the killing. Oh well, still good.

Why does he have to have those super violent bits though? ( )
  endolith | Mar 1, 2023 |
Mostrando 1-5 de 76 (seguinte | mostrar todas)
Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction. He begins in medias res, introducing characters, places and events that are not explained in detail until many pages later. [...] The deus ex machina ending will strike some as too easy. But as in all good fiction, what's important in Banks's work is the subtext, which I take to be the idea that freedom is both necessary and dangerous, and that only by imagining the unimaginable, both in ourselves and others, can we hope to remain free.
adicionado por Widsith | editarNew York Times, Gerald Jonas (Oct 7, 2001)
 
.. he is not afraid to to ponder the implications of his flash-bang spectaculars. He examines the fine distinction between hedonism (what the Culture thinks it practises) and decadence (what many others perceive), as well as the responsibilities that come with immeasurable power. An enjoyable romp is overlaid with tragedy as he rubs our noses in the consequences of war: ...

adicionado por andyl | editarThe Guardian, Phil Daoust (Sep 2, 2000)
 

» Adicionar outros autores (3 possíveis)

Nome do autorFunçãoTipo de autorObra?Status
Iain M. Banksautor principaltodas as ediçõescalculado
Eliot, T. S.Contribuinteautor secundáriotodas as ediçõesconfirmado
Bonhorst, IreneTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Gamissans Serna, PaulaTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
García Martínez, MartaTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Gálla, NóraTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Kenny, PeterNarradorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Mäkelä, LauriTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Rizzi, LeonardoTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Salwowski, MarkArtista da capaautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Sigaud, BernardTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Stennett, CraigFotógrafoautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Vanderstelt, JerryArtista da capaautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
Virtanen, JariTradutorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
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It was one of the less glorious incidents of the Idiran wars that led to the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported. Now, 800 years later, the light from the first of those deaths has reached the Culture's Masaq' Orbital. A Chelgrian emissary is dispatched to the Culture.

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