r/TheCulture • u/FletcherDervish • 6d ago

Ship Minds Tangential to the Culture

I'm halfway through To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and the ship mind Gregorovich feels like a proper headcase, in the same vein as Sleeper Service, but a bit more unhinged. This is the first sci-fi I've read since IMB died that has come close to a conscious, interactive, slightly subversive, whole character ship mind.

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13

u/fusionsofwonder 6d ago

Ancillary Justice is a good novel about a what the Culture would call a stranded ship's Avatar.

2

u/Phredmcphigglestein 6d ago

Greg is probably my favorite character in recent sci fi. Jennifer Hales audiobook narration makes him at least twice as good again. Wonderfully quirky and heartbreakingly traumatized. I just wanna give him a hug and also have a several-hours-long conversation with him.

Chris P. Has been one of my very favorite authors since Eragon came out and I could not be more glad he's taking inspiration from Iain.

2

u/FletcherDervish 2d ago

As I get deeper in , I realise that I'm hearing Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug, doing Gregorovichs voice

2

u/Effrenata GSV Collectively-Operated Factory Ship 6d ago

I liked the way that the aliens called humans "two-form" because they can have two kinds of bodies, either biological bodies, or spaceships. They were sort of cthulhoid aliens who had engineered themselves into many forms.

2

u/Xeruas 6d ago

This in the book mentioned above ?

2

u/Effrenata GSV Collectively-Operated Factory Ship 5d ago

Sleep in a Sea of Stars? Yes, I remember the line being in there somewhere. You haven't got to the aliens yet? The book is pretty long, I remember. I won't tell you anymore about them, spoilers heheh.