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A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

littlebrown.co.uk

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Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#321

Post by mikestew »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #247

Very sad news indeed. Just introduced the works of Iain M. Banks to a friend, so something happy does come from sad news. Also, if you're a fan of the Culture universe and want a smile, have a gander at a list of Culture ship names @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Cultu... "Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The" "Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again" "Lapsed Pacifist" "Subtle Shift In Emphasi…

> Just introduced the works of Iain M. Banks to a friend, so something happy does come from sad news.

And I've just purchased Player of Games, maybe not based on your personal recommendation, but certainly on the collective recommendation since this news broke. Kind of a sad way to get introduced to an author, but OTOH I think it would be somewhat nice that even my impending death would lead to new readers of my work.

I do feel like I'm the last geek/techy/nerd/HN/SlashDot reader on the planet to have heard of him, though.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#322

Post by wpietri »

abraininavat wrote: post #236
xradionut wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Player of Games is one of the few sci-fi books I recommend to readers interested in the genre.

To everyone who enjoyed Player of Games, I ask.. why? I'm not suggesting your opinions are wrong , of course, but I had a much different impression. Obviously Player of Games is well regarded by many people, so I'm curious to know what I missed. --- SPOILERS BELOW --- My general impression was that the Empire of Azad was that its conception lacked imagination. The peculiarities of the species (the three sexes, the so…

> An alien species should be different. Vastly different.

That is one thing you could do with an alien species. Banks has done that elsewhere quite a bit. It could be that his imagination failed him here. Or he could have made a conscious choice, seeking a specific effect.

I think it was the latter. For me, part of the point of literature is to explore what it means to be human. One of the things that comes up over and over in Banks's work is encounters between developed and primitive cultures. He uses the contrasts to examine where we've come from, who we are, and where we might go.

Player of Games in particular to me spends a lot of time looking at the desire to win, and also the desire to play for high stakes. The Culture's post-scarcity society makes bets meaningless. How does somebody with a gambler's nature fare in that context? And how does somebody raised in that context change when they become immersed in a society built around gamesmanship and gambling? The Azadians are an exaggeration of particular aspects of humanity because he's trying to explore those aspects. If they were more alien, you would identify with them less, which I think would weaken the impact.

If you're reading Banks for things like detailed descriptions of fictional games, you should probably look elsewhere. He's definitely the kind of guy who likes building elaborate sets and then showing them to you. But they are there to support the drama that is performed in front of them.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#323

Post by brazzy »

Gatsky wrote: post #310
brazzy wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends completely on which chemotherapy you get, which cancer you have, and sheer dumb luck. Both "chemotherapy" and "cancer" are blanket terms covering a multitude of radically different things. Best case: your cancer is contained to a single organ and susceptible to antibody therapy. Practically no side effects, and you'll most likely be healed. Worst case: your cancer has spread to multiple organs, requires th…

"You're better off setting yourself on fire -" That plainly isn't true. Why come to HN to make hyperbolic generalisations about cancer therapy? There are many people with advanced widespread disease who choose to have treatment. Are you suggesting that they are all foolish or coerced by doctors? Really? Would you be happy to come down to my cancer hospital and tell the 33 year old woman with 2 young children that she…

> That plainly isn't true. Why come to HN to make hyperbolic generalisations about cancer therapy?

That was not a generalization; I explicitly labelled it as "worst case", but what actually happened to one of my girlfriend's patients is that as a reaction to the cytotoxics, his entire skin started to dissolve. This may have been an extremely rare special case, but it did happen, and the doctors in charge didn't stop the therapy even then. The patient died after suffering effectively as a burn victim for 2 weeks.

It's great to hear that you are willing (and presumably trained) to consider non-therapy as an option as much as whatever the newest miracle cure is, but that's definitely no the case for all oncologists everywhere.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#324

Post by wpietri »

guy2221 wrote: post #279

This is tragic and heart-breaking. Please be strong and live every minute to the fullest. But I do have one constructive comment perhaps someone can get to this author. >The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for 'several months' and it’s extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last. >As a…

Protip: Don't tell adults what to do with their lives. Especially when it relates to love or death.

If you have some actual relevant experience that you would like someone to be aware of, go ahead and share it. Share your own thoughts and feelings about your personal experience as well.

And then STFU. Let them draw their own conclusions. People dying of cancer / watching their loved ones die of cancer really, really, really don't need your moralizing about their choices. They have a giant heap of shit to deal with, and they don't need you flinging a couple of turds on top.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#325

Post by wpietri »

Gatsky wrote: post #310
brazzy wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends completely on which chemotherapy you get, which cancer you have, and sheer dumb luck. Both "chemotherapy" and "cancer" are blanket terms covering a multitude of radically different things. Best case: your cancer is contained to a single organ and susceptible to antibody therapy. Practically no side effects, and you'll most likely be healed. Worst case: your cancer has spread to multiple organs, requires th…

"You're better off setting yourself on fire -" That plainly isn't true. Why come to HN to make hyperbolic generalisations about cancer therapy? There are many people with advanced widespread disease who choose to have treatment. Are you suggesting that they are all foolish or coerced by doctors? Really? Would you be happy to come down to my cancer hospital and tell the 33 year old woman with 2 young children that she…

You should read a little more carefully. He is not suggesting anything like what you read into it.

Having seen a bad reaction to chemo up close, I can confirm that it is pretty awful, and that I'd certainly have to think before choosing between a bad chemo reaction and setting myself on fire.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#326

Post by lsparrish »

DanBC wrote: post #165
nawitus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You might as well argue that nano-bots will be able to reanimate a body that has decomposed, and save money on all the freezing equipment. Perhaps that will be the case if given enough time, but we seem to be a long way away from that technology. No, you might not as well argue that. If you think you can, then please argue how you can retrive information from a completely decomposed brain. On the other hand, it's pr…

> On the other hand, it's pretty reasonable to assume that a cryopreserved brain preserves a lot of the information in the brain. No! That's not at all reasonable. We understand very little about brains. We understand even less about deep-frozen brains.

From what we do know, it's actually very reasonable. We know e.g. that memory survives hypothermic loss of electrical activity. So it is probably structurally based.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#327

Post by lsparrish »

Cushman wrote: post #186
tjic wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just want to highlight two things, firstly his support for the NHS Which is meaningless; an anecdotal impression is not data. > Secondly, can we leave off the cryogenic stuff ? The guy is dying, and pretending it will just be a pause is insulting all round. Some people think that cryogenics is a better chance of resurrection than burying a body in dirt. The case isn't settled, but it's not a stupid or crazy belie…

> Some people think that cryogenics is a better chance of resurrection than burying a body in dirt. And some people think burying a body in dirt is the best chance of resurrection. These beliefs do not seem, at this point in time, differentially stupid or crazy. It is quite all right to hold such beliefs, but bringing them up every time someone dies as if-only-they-had is rather insensitive.

> These beliefs do not seem, at this point in time, differentially stupid or crazy.

How did you reach that point of view?

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#328

Post by FeepingCreature »

roc wrote: post #259
khafra wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Whether or not the most substantial damage occurs with apoptosis when oxygen is re-introduced, there will uncontroversially be a lot of damage even in the best case cryonic vitrification. Also uncontroversially, there will be substantially less damage than would occur with cremation or burial. Even the lesser amount of damage may be too much. Cryonics is a bet that it is not.

But is there a scientific basis to prefer this bet to, say, death-bed religious conversion?

As a bet, its possibility of payoff is consistent with the rest of what we know about the world, as opposed to religion, which is inconsistent. Furthermore, there are cases where things similar to this were done successfully, so extrapolation of technology might lead one to believe that we may be sufficiently good at reconstruction in the future. In comparison, no prayer has ever even slightly worked.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#329

Post by FeepingCreature »

jellicle wrote: post #150
gizmo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cell damage inflicted by the cryo process is readily acknowledged by its proponents. They argue that the neurological damage is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. Much like data from a wiped hard drive can still be recovered by digital forensics. As for the problem of outer layers freezing faster than inner layers…

> Now, I'm rather skeptical of the whole process myself, but the crynoics guys understand biology 101. Actually, they mostly understand Psychology 101, which is that people are willing to pay unlimited amounts of money for the promise of life after death. SEE ALSO: turning lead into gold.

http://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.html

> Alcor has no company owners to profit from cryonics, salaries are modest, and the Board of Directors serves without pay.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#330

Post by swombat »

engtech wrote: post #262
anigbrowl wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider Phlebas is more of a literary novel that happens to take place in the future. I like all of Banks' work and thinkSwombat's suggested reading order above is spot on, but I also think Consider Phlebas is by far his best work.

My fav is Look to Windward, but you needed to be entrenched in the world to get a lot out of that book. I still haven't been able to make myself finish Matter yet.

I loved Matter. It drags on for the first half (like many of his books), but once it gets started, boy does it go!

The title is awfully well chosen, too. The full title would probably be: "Matter? It doesn't"

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