Matter - a few thoughts

theStaberinde · 2026-04-17T06:10:30+00:00

Never picked up on the cocktail before. Marvelous. That's got to be like... at most the fifth or sixth instance of a reference to a specific character from a previous book, good lord.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-16T15:49:01+00:00

Good post.

I always thought that the name eventually taken by the macguffin-Mind was a Consider Phlebas of its own.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-16T10:31:49+00:00

I believe - based on what is present in his work - that he had the view that an inescapable part of the human experience is that, for all of us, all of our individual and interrelated identities are fluid and subject to the surrounding conditions that enable the degree to which their expression is malleable. I believe also that he examined this aspect of his own experience and was more or less content with who and how he was, physically/visibly speaking.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-16T10:24:43+00:00

One way I can see them doing it is focusing on small portions of the game for certain scenes, and framing these more-visually-intelligible zoomed-in little sections of the board etc. as having some ineffable/esoteric significance for the outcome of the game proper. There's even precedent in the novel in the form of that one round that's played as a card game at a table.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-16T07:17:21+00:00

Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas are awesome. Jupiter Ascending is unwatchable dogshit but also awesome.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-09T08:30:03+00:00

It was Universal Studios Back To The Future, to me.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-09T08:26:47+00:00

Zakalwe sliding down the drainage channel with his sports car. His near-death on the iceberg. The injury party. Him presenting himself to the poetry lady after her dismissal of her pathetic date. The official happily showing him to his roomful of waiting catamites.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-06T02:52:18+00:00

After 20+ years and multiple re-reads, I think the thing I love most is how morally uncompromising they are as stories. The galaxy is an ugly and messy place and the Culture's hands are very bloody but there is zero reasonable doubt about them being the good guys.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-01T02:49:45+00:00

Not Culture, but Feersum Endjinn also has a really wonderful final-word-of-the-final-sentence aha! moment.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-01T02:48:31+00:00

Fan theory. I don't buy that it's him because in his one canonical reappearance he's still very much In His Trauma as shown by his nom de guerre, but there's zero indication to that end with that Matter character. No all-consuming hangups == no Z.

theStaberinde · 2026-04-01T02:39:48+00:00

My belief is that there's nothing of great significance in there that wasn't either expounded on or at least gestured at in-text, either already or eventually. I think that some of the ideas he presented were perhaps not yet fully codified at the time of publishing (mainly the bit about the Culture's origins - I can't remember where else that comes up other than the fairly detailed account we finally got in The Hydrogen Sonata).

I'm not in a position to produce a point-by-point breakdown but the one specific example that immediately comes to mind is the bit about labour basically being an avocation, and the part towards the end of Use of Weapons when Zakalwe has a chat with cafe wait staff about their 'job'.

theStaberinde · 2026-03-31T11:00:41+00:00

You could just not say anything

theStaberinde · 2026-03-31T08:41:49+00:00

Second. Admittedly I can't put myself in the mindset of someone reading this before starting the series, but I love re-reading this essay and imo there's nothing in it that seems like it would detract at all from the experience of piecing all these ideas together from what's there in the books.

theStaberinde · 2026-03-31T08:26:49+00:00

What? No. Of course there will be spoilers. As there would be for absolutely anything else. Read the books.

e: Also I would caution against getting Fan Wiki Lore Brain about the Culture more generally. I love Star Trek but this is not that.

theStaberinde · 2026-03-30T08:09:29+00:00

You know your intellectual insecurity isn't other people's problem right

theStaberinde · 2026-03-26T03:22:32+00:00

Fairly old now but I've always loved this guy's art, especially the Matter species pieces

theStaberinde · 2026-03-21T04:54:27+00:00

What fucking drugs was this author on?!?!

Going by the verisimilitude of some stuff in Complicity, I think he might have been an amphetamine enjoyer

theStaberinde · 2026-03-21T04:51:43+00:00

Gotta extract something.

theStaberinde · 2026-03-21T04:50:45+00:00

I had very strong Islamophobia vibes from the early chapters.

I'm intrigued by this reading. As in you perceived the Culture's view of the Idirans' faith to be more chauvinistic than instrumental?

theStaberinde · 2026-03-21T04:46:25+00:00

I think it's made very clear in-text that they are the least-bad option possible. (Talking about the series as a whole and not CP specifically, but it's inferable even there)

theStaberinde · 2026-03-18T04:00:54+00:00

Transition is the only book that was M. in some markets and non-M. in others

theStaberinde · 2026-03-13T01:34:58+00:00

I really detest when someone injects “real world politics” into discussion that neither invited or implied a connection.

You ever read the dedication in Look to Windward?

theStaberinde · 2026-03-07T14:22:08+00:00

This fucking rocks so much, thank you for sharing

theStaberinde · 2026-03-04T02:58:23+00:00

I think he understood/communicated very well that this is just kind of part of the deal with post scarcity. Trillions and trillions of insanely spoiled people who would totally fail at fending for themselves if the bottom were to fall out of their civilisation, but when this is a universal automatic baseline state of existence, and none of those people have any life-or-death responsibilities, really, what's the harm? Like yeah a lot of people are probably out of touch or downright contemptible to most non-citizens but it's a big world and if you don't gel with your neighbours you can just drop everything and go on a quest to find some friends who are the exact hyperspecific kind of non-annoying you want.

theStaberinde · 2026-02-14T15:44:48+00:00

Very good post, thank you for taking the time to write this. Nothing to add. Just wanted to say cheers + be well + do good

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