The State of the Art - Outside of a Dog

(1 review)

The first ever collection of Iain Banks’s short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale.

1 edition

Ben Harris-Roxas reviewed The State of the Art by Iain Banks

Disappointing within the context of the Culture series

2 stars

Content warning Non-plot description of a story’s setting

Given the bulk of the volume is the novella The State Of The Art I’ll focus on that. The conceit of the Culture contacting Earth ruins many of the other Culture novels for me and deprives them of their power. It makes it clear how Banks wants both the Culture and the politics of the ‘70s and ‘80s to be understood. I wish I hadn’t read this to be honest, and I kind of wish it didn’t exist because it serves mostly to diminish his other work.

I acknowledge this is very much focused on my own view and experience, but isn’t that what reading is?

Subjects

English Science fiction
Short stories
Long Now Manual for Civilization