Talk:Matter (novel)

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BetacommandBot 12:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Preceding novel
I'm not sure if listing "Steep approach to Garbagbedale" as the preceeding novel makes sense. Shouldn't it be the last culture novel, or at least, the last Iain M Banks novel? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.240.48 (talk) 04:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it makes sense. Ian Banks and Iain M. Banks are not two different people. Heck, you'd then also need a third list of novels, because he also writes non-Culture SF too! Ingolfson (talk) 09:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * i think it makes the most sense to have it be the previous book in the series. a person can go to the writer's page to see the chronological order of books written. if they're reading about a book in a specific series, it makes the most sense to have the previous/next novel be the next one in that series.75.65.156.70 (talk) 07:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Publication date
I'm trying not to read the article as I want to avoid spoilers. However, I bought a copy today, so the February publication date can't be right... Evercat (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I bought the book 2 days ago, even though the online shops claim it isn't released yet... I'm guessing the bookshop accidentally put it in the shop too early. Bart Coppens (talk) 18:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I received my copy from Amazon UK today, so it's definitely released. 82.69.127.77 (talk) 21:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Complexity
Okay, slightly off-topic, but does anyone think he (Banks) was being a bit over the top when he called the book so complex that even its complexity was complex? Compared to some of the other Culture books (Use of Weapons!) I found this relatively straightforward. It could be summarised as "Ancient evil slumbers in old city, wakes up, and is killed by sacrifice of main character." EXTREMELY straight-forward. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't too complex in terms of plot, only in the background world. Ingolfson (talk) 09:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, 90% of the book don't deal with the "ancient evil" story; would you call this all just "background"? It tells several stories (three main stories: Djan's, Ferbin's, and Oramen's) which ultimately culminate in the "ancient evil" event, which comes rather as a surprise, but I think that the complex way to this climax is more important than the climax itself. Still, Banks seems to exaggerate a bit regarding readers needing the appendices; despite lots of neologisms and characters disappearing for a long time, it is quite easy to follow indeed. Gestumblindi (talk) 01:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Reading it, I got the impression it would have been more complex, but Banks (and/or his editors/publishers) very severely cut it down. The shift in pace towards the end is sudden, and the whole climax seems rushed. Maybe that was an intentional effect (it is the actionful climax after all), but I suspect Banks intended to write something 2x+ the length which would have lived up to his earlier claims of complexity and length, and perhaps decided it was unworkable as a single book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.3.111 (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The description included in this article made me snort: 'Complex' would be about the last word I'd use to describe this novel. It wasn't a bad book by any means but complex it was not, even compared to other Banks novels as mentioned by Ingolfson above. A quick search didn't reveal a contrasting verifiable opinion to include in the article, so I don't quite see how to fix it.  It seems unfortunate to leave the article so obviously inaccurate simply because the inaccuracy comes from a verifiable source.  I'm tempted to remove the quote on the basis that it's quite clearly regarding a pre-publication form of of the novel ("I'm not sure the publishers will go for the appendices") which may have lived up to the described complexity while the final novel did not… Though I think it would be better still to have instead keep the quote and match it with contrasting one from another verifiable source if we can find one. Thoughts? --Gmaxwell (talk) 06:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Nestworld of Syaung-un
Am I the only one who noticed that this thing is much huger than Banks apparently intended? The dimensions (a toroid 300 million km across, the diameter of a cross-sectional circle being "nowhere less than a million kilometers") are staggeringly gargantuan. I calculate its volume to be approx 740,220,000,000,000,000,000 km3. 740 quintillion cubic kilometers. The book mentions that it's home to 40 trillion souls. That gives each person more than 18.5 million km3 to themselves. .froth. (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That's just a 264km sided cube each. No big deal. :-) 63.82.98.50 (talk) 16:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hyphenation
Hamiltondaniel has been going around removing parenthetical hyphens. Wikipedia's style manual for hyphens dictates removing spaces around hyphens, but frankly the result looks strange. Most readers seeing a hyphen joining two words with no whitespace anticipate that the two words are to be read as a single "compound" word. Maybe we could "correct" to a spaced en-dash for the kind of parenthetic statement. It conforms to the style guide without being a visual barbarism. Sdoradus (talk) 11:30, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Removal of Editoralising
Removed the following paragraphs as I felt they fell into editorialising and speculation, which classifies as original thought.

There is a strong clue near the end of the original edition of "Matter" (ISBN 978-1-84149-418-0) on page 534, that while the original Anaplian is definitively deceased, her brain state and genetic material have survived (as would the original Xuss). There are references to corporeal and brain-state backups throughout the Culture works; in Look to Windward's epilogue, a culture citizen is resurrected 30-odd million years after the events of the novel by a dirigible behemothaur which once knew him. Briefly, Xuss proper would have survived since only his mind-copy would have died with the knife missile; and Choubris Holse observes Djan Seriy Anaplian taking out "insurance" before the Iln apocalypse. This 'insurance' took the form of one tube from her suit which sinks into the ice and one small button which rises up. The button would contain her brain-state, and the tube a genetic sample (along with recordings). Holse's suit would have had similar provision. The Culture would have therefore a reasonably complete picture of events. This does not automatically mean Anaplian would be resurrected, since many Culture citizens choose not to be, and her adopted child is no longer with her.

- Aprogressivist (talk) 10:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

On the whole I would tend to think those paragraphs, or something similar, should stay.

"Insurance" was the word used by the main character herself, and while the comment is speculative, to the extent that "Matter" is a puzzle novel it may be required to draw attention to the intention of the author - in particular, the possibility that she may reappear in a later novel.

Repeating characters are not unknown in the Culture universe; one example being Diziet Sma, of "Use of Weapons" and "State of the Art". (Sdoradus (talk) 10:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC))


 * Sorry for not adequately justifying my removal of those paragraphs. On reflection, I feel some discussion of this should go into the article, but without some of the more original research. I'll try a rewrite on the page - see what you think. Rawling 4851 17:49, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Specifically, I've removed the implicit suggestion that the other two suits may have stored backups, and most references to the other insurance - I personally think it was the AM charges to signal the ship, but that is just my opinion, and we don't know for sure. I thought there was a reference to one of the ship's avatars surviving (or maybe that was just here) - I feel that that could be included too, if not too OR-ey. Rawling 4851 17:56, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

– Much better. Shorter than my version and gets across the main point. On the subject of avatars: Hippinse died but there was a surviving avatar, Klatsli Quike (who was nowhere near the final confrontation). Quike is properly an 'avatoid' (barely distinguishable from human) rather than an avatar. The significance of the other two suits is that while one (Ferbin's) was probably atomized, the other (Holse's) survived. Whatever recordings Anaplian's might have made would be echoed in Holse's one, including the final firefight, hence the 'reasonably complete picture of events'. But this adds little to the discussion. (Sdoradus (talk) 09:04, 2 November 2009 (UTC))
 * IIRC the thing that sank into the ice was a probe - that's what located the Oct watersphere crew who confirmed that had happened at the dig site. Also, I think it's recorded in the text that Djan backed herself up before setting out for Susamen so she and Xuss are likely still kicking about somewhere (but not Susamen given that Holse appears to be running for government).  The Liveware Problem is probably done for ... extremely unlikely that you could properly back up a Mind into an avatoid so the LP's surviving 'toids are probably orphans.  Unless the LP is backed up on another Mind somewhere. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 14:48, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

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Matter
Matter 103.167.233.7 (talk) 02:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)