I finally dived into The Culture series, and what, you ask, did i think of the first book?
Well, to be honest, it was rather a long, long winded affair that seemed to sprawl on and on while bringing nothing much to the story.
We also had a huge pacing issue. Why, oh why, do writers suddenly get all descriptive and feel the need to waffle on about every nut and bolt holding doors on and stuff during fight/action/battle scenes? This is the sort of thing an editor should pull up and throw the manuscript back at the writer for. What should have been a great, final battle between our protagonists and the Idirans, flies by on the passages that would take ages in the real world while finding ourselves wading through pages of completely unnecessary waffle when all the action starts kicking off, taking ages to read through scenes that would last a minute or two, at most, in the real world.
Annoyingly, there does appear to be a very good story behind all the poor writing, and . . .
. . . so, having trudged through all that, i feel i’m losing myself to a sunk cost fallacy as i’ve started to read The Player of Games in the hope that it’ll somehow be much better written — we shall see.
A magistrate from the Empire returns to the old, worn-out mind-ship she grew up on for a funeral.
Another little Xuya story about one of the people who have access to the virtual overlays of all those on board one of the mind-stations. Imagine if you could look where you shouldn’t, but you wouldn’t, unless you let your guard down.
What if everyone else gets killed and the habitat mind on the planet decides it’s going to keep you there and never let you go?
I’m just beginning to get into pourover coffee and this is the first coffee that i’ve gotten good with.
I got a little bit worried at first, like Ruth had written a book for teenagers, but the story slowly gets going and more grown up as we get into it.
Yes, i went back and re-read this in 2005. Sadly, it really didn’t give one the thrill ride of something new and exciting that i got on the first read. Once you know the story, and how things turn out, it does diminish it somewhat.
