{"id":398,"date":"2006-11-07T20:13:21","date_gmt":"2006-11-07T20:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=398"},"modified":"2012-02-27T14:23:14","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T14:23:14","slug":"the-algebraist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=398","title":{"rendered":"The Algebraist"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><em>The Algebraist<\/em> by Iain M. Banks<\/h3>\n<p>Eight readers gathered at Willie and Charles\u2019s           place to discuss <em>The Algebraist<\/em>, a recent           Hugo-nominated novel. All of us had read Banks before.           Five had finished the book.<\/p>\n<p>A few of us had been too busy working on the           recently-concluded World Fantasy Convention to read           much of the book. Since the organizer was among this           latter group, this report may appear less informative           than usual. It\u2019s hard to take<!--more--> coherent notes for           a book discussion where one is unfamiliar with the           book.<\/p>\n<p>The story is a grand baroque space opera involving           humans and Slow Dwellers, aliens who perceive time very           slowly. The book is filled with puzzles, plot twists,           aliens with mostly anthropomorphic personalities,           wormholes, and interesting economic theories. There are           \u201cgee whiz\u201d moments. The book explores           what-if scenarios: \u201cWhat if there were no           limits?\u201d, \u201cWhat if nothing was           scarce?\u201d, and \u201cWhat if a race was obsessed           with death?\u201d There were evil mega-cultures and a           good libertarian giga-culture.<\/p>\n<p>We liked the way this book was written. We appreciated           the detail, the well-chosen prose style, its large           scope, and the way Banks reveals information to us. At           least three of us had enjoyed the story and its plot           twists so much that they reread the book.<\/p>\n<p>There was a brief discussion of how this book fits into           Banks\u2019s work as a whole. We determined that this           is not one of his \u201cCulture\u201d series because           there is no faster-than-light travel. Several people           noted the libertarian political undertone of this book           and the rest of Banks\u2019s work. One member thinks           Banks is the finest UK writer of science fiction.<\/p>\n<p>After the meeting, several of us had a nice dinner at           Texas Land and Cattle.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212; A. T. Campbell, III<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks Eight readers gathered at Willie and Charles\u2019s place to discuss The Algebraist, a recent Hugo-nominated novel. All of us had read Banks before. Five had finished the book. A few of us had been too busy working on the recently-concluded World Fantasy Convention to read much of the book. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}