getting back to an old subject...

[Andrew Robinson]

On 14 April 2012 13:50, Peter Korsten <peter at severity-one.com> wrote:
> Actually, I find Banks' socialist Utopia rather objectionable. The people
> are without exception hedonistic, narcissistic and egotistical. The natural
> world is there to be exploited.

I think Banks would agree with you (but he might complain that the
ship minds are people too). His utopia is everything we think we want
from an ideal society, but the vast majority of people in it face no
challenges or adversity and are therefore pretty much forced into
bland, uniform hedonism, a fact that he recognises and plays with. His
books are almost never about normal people from the Culture, they
concentrate on the interface between the Culture and outside forces,
the morals of interfering, wars or or breakaway factions. His
characters are generally either 'special circumstances' (the people
who deal with races outside the Culture) or fall guys who are jerked
around by special circumstances.

- Andy_R