A collection of shorter fiction by Banks. The stories are mostly pretty average, only the Culture ones stand out.
Two men travel along a road to a city they never seem to reach. Very short, left me slightly baffled. What was the point? **
Odd Attachment • (1989) • short story by Iain M. Banks
A tree creature is tending his cattle and at the same time worrying if another one loves him. A spaceship lands, and a strange animal comes out. It has five nice appendices in both protuberances in its upper body which can be used to calculate if she loves me or she loves me not. A simple and short story. ***-
A Gift from the Culture • [Culture] • (1987) • short story by Iain M. Banks
A Culture citizen is staying on a non-Culture planet. He is blackmailed to use a powerful weapon that can only be used by a Culture citizen. He is supposed to shoot down a descending space ship which most likely will cause political chaos. What can he do? A pretty good story that ends a bit too soon. ***½
Descendant • [Culture] • (1987) • novelette by Iain M. Banks
A man has crash landed on a barren moon. He and a sentient but damaged space suit must try to escape death by walking around half of the moon. A pretty good story about surviving and co-operating. ****-
Cleaning Up • (1987) • short story by Iain M. Banks
A faulty matter transmitter sends random junk to Earth at random locations. As it is high-tech junk, humans try to use it, eventually with not-so-nice consequences. A short and ironic story could well have been from the 50s Galaxy magazine. ***
Piece • (1989) • short story by Iain M. Banks
A letter about religious fundamentalism which is supposed to be from a Lockerbie plane crash site. A short piece with no plot. ***-
The State of the Art • [Culture • 3] • (1989) • novella by Iain M. Banks
A Culture expedition is visiting the Earth in the 70s. The Ship that leads the expedition has hoovered every tidbit of anything humans have ever created with its tiny but powerful probes. A few members of Special Circumstances visit major cities to get a firsthand experience of human life. One agent decides to stay on Earth and more or less turn into a human. Another wants to drop a tiny black hole to the center of the Earth to rid of such a rotten place. Another wishes that Earth would join the Culture, but that is not to be: Earth will be a “control” world in a study by Culture. It wants to find out if it is worthwhile to make a contact with the uncivilized worlds which have not yet grown into the post-scarcity life. A pretty good look on Earth by Culture. After this story, there shouldn’t be any question of if the Culture is established by Earthlings. It is not. ****
Scratch • (1987) • short story by Iain M. Banks
Some kind of stream of consciousness thing. I didn’t understand it, I didn’t get it, I didn’t finish it. *
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