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The State of the Art

Culture Series, Book 4

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The State of the Art

By: Iain M. Banks
Narrated by: Peter Kenny
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About this listen

The works of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.

The State of the Art is the only collection of Iain M. Banks's short ­fiction and includes the acclaimed Culture novella of the same name.

From science ­fiction to horror, dark fantasy to twisted comedy, all eight stories bear the inde­finable stamp of Banks's staggering talent.

The novels of Iain M. Banks:

The Culture series
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art

Other books by Iain M. Banks
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist

©1991 Iain M. Banks (P)2013 Hachette Audio Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Horror Science Fiction Short Stories Scary Thought-Provoking Banking

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Critic reviews

'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson
Most relevant  
Great stories and the usual high quality narration. quite how Peter Kenny did so well on Scratch baffles me!

a brilliant selection

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Peter Kenny gives a bravura performance once again and Iain M. Banks' writing is superb.

This is a fantastic listen.

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Really makes you think what it is to be living and what our personal and social responsibilities are.

Peter Kenny is absolutely brilliant.

A close look

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The audio pulled me out of the story quite frequently because you can really hear that the guy is sitting inside a voice recording booth. He did a great job with his energetic readings, but the reverberation and echoes on the walls of the recording booth were distracting to me. The production company would do well to isolate his voice further by using a different microphone or checking his distance and gain.
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With only the one story being of any merit, you can go ahead and skip to the title piece in this collection of stories, or at least writing exercises.

State of the Art was interesting only as an Earth-focussed side note to the culture series, but incredibly basic and boring mild preaching about human nature. There's no real deeper challenge to your thinking, or captivating story elements that are sometimes presented through the stories of aliens within or beside the Culture.

Audio issue

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Any additional comments?

This works well as an introduction to Iain M Banks as its a little less daunting than some of his epics. It contains interesting and varied stories that explore his relationship with the wider world and the sf genre alongside the novella State of the Art. This is a good read (listen) as a standalone story but is better if read after Use of Weapons as it explores two of the key characters.

An interesting collection of stories

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Loved listening to a favourite book. Listening to all the Culture books, it is like I have absorbed them for the first time. Fab.

Beautifully read.

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I find some of Banks' prose spoiled by over use of certain phrases or idioms and by over lengthy descriptive narrative as well as rather basic characterisations. For all that I love the Culture series, like the characters, like the way that issues challenge them (liberal world order anyone?) and I will not fault the story line.
what I take issue with is how the reader persistently amplifies the ironical and offhanded tone found in much of the dialogue. To some extent I believe the tone expresses attitudes as intended by the author, and I think such attitudes appropriate to the Culture's milieu. But the reader's intonation makes it constantly jarring. I think a slightly more sober reading would add to the overall effect.
Anyway I'm glad I listened as I work through the series. Excession is next.

Great story poor reading

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Aways well written and well read but the stories within are disjointed. Despite one's hope that it will all make sense in the end, it never does. Perhaps that's the point.

Bizarre

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Too much repetitive moralising about how terrible we are as a species. Not one of the better culture novels.

Tedious

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the reader really brings all the shorts to life and of course, delivers the novella brilliantly as he does other ian m banks books. cheers

brilliant

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