From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed May 14 2003 - 12:10:49 MDT
On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 02:13:52AM +1000, Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 07:56 AM 5/14/03 -0700, Damien Sullivan wrote:
>
> >Has anyone here read _The Also People_ by Ben Aaronvich? It gets
> mentioned on
> >rec.arts.sf.written as being "The Culture done right".
>
> A Doctor Who book being compared with Banks? Gee.
Yeah. But hey, media books can be decent. Mark Atwood's a big fan, his line
seemed to be "better SF", not better literarily. Some searching of Usenet
archives had people arguing that the book at least takes place inside the
"Culture", unlike the Culture books... this all long before Look to Windward.
The usual charge being that the Culture can't support stories about itself
because utopia is boring.
But I also saw charges that Aaronvich's book is a shallow copy... I dunno.
Apparently the ship names are those of other Dr. Who authors. Woo. I think
MacLeod did better.
I was annoyed by one comment that it better because it was 'funner' or
'funnier' (I forget which) than _Consider Phlebas_. As if CP was trying to be
fun!
So, I dunno if I'll try to find a copy, since my libraries failed me.
-xx- Damien X-)
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