The State of the Art is a collection of short fiction, mainly science fiction, by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1991.
In the title novella, a Culture ship visits Earth in 1977 and surveys it.
This book includes a variety of styles: among the first- and third-person narratives, The State of the Art itself appears in the form of an edited report.
At 100 pages long, the title story makes up the bulk of the book. The novella chron...
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The State of the Art is a collection of short fiction, mainly science fiction, by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1991.
In the title novella, a Culture ship visits Earth in 1977 and surveys it.
This book includes a variety of styles: among the first- and third-person narratives, The State of the Art itself appears in the form of an edited report.
At 100 pages long, the title story makes up the bulk of the book. The novella chronicles a Culture mission to Earth, and also serves as a prequel of sorts to Use of Weapons, featuring some earlier activities of one of that novel's characters, Diziet Sma.
Sma argues for contact with Earth, to try and fix the mess the human species has made of it; Linter goes native, choosing to renounce his Culture body enhancements so as to be more like the locals; and Li (who is a Star Trek fan), argues that the whole "incontestably neurotic and clinically insane species" should be eradicated with a micro black hole. The Arbitrary (ship)...
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