false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179185211m/886069.jpg 12009 14 It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known. 2465248 2004 The Algebraist total:1036|5:234|4:434|3:276|2:74|1:18| 1036 3900 1581 92 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 5 2 false Sat Jan 26 16:59:19 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 17 19:10:34 -0800 2008 more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 1 3 false Wed May 28 22:01:35 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 22:01:35 -0700 2008 more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 5 1 false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Dec 17 10:07:25 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 17 12:21:35 -0800 2007 more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 1 false Tue Apr 29 07:59:46 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 18:55:47 -0700 2008 more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 3 1 false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 04 08:18:13 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 04 09:39:14 -0800 2008
On the plus side, most of the book invo...more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Sun Nov 01 23:42:24 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 01 23:49:59 -0800 2009 more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 12 16:41:26 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 16:43:26 -0700 2009
In my younger years, I consumed a lot of science fiction. I read Clarke, Asimov, Card, Herbert, all the classic masters and a lot of the lesser lights besides. Somewhere in the late nineties I discovered Iain M. Banks, first stumbling into the epic Against...more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 3 1 false Sat Apr 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 27 05:57:28 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 11:18:41 -0700 2009
The trouble with this book, I think, is twofold. The first problem is that much of the book takes place in wildly alien landscapes, with the human protagonist spending the bulk of the story inside a small...more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Sat Aug 15 20:45:02 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 15 20:48:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 535041 1597800260 9781597800266 10 2 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175612709m/535041.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/535041.The_Algebraist 3 0 false Fri Jul 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 05:31:17 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 18 07:04:53 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 27 17:32:58 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 27 17:34:57 -0800 2008 Dune saga will notice nods to his classic work, but Banks’ writing is much more approachable than Herbert’s. Fassin Taak, the titular Algebraist, must use his skills as an ambassador to the odd life-forms on the Jupiter-like, gas giant worl...more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 3 0 false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon May 11 20:14:09 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 20:19:33 -0700 2009
To be ho...more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 3 false Wed Dec 09 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Sep 29 01:44:43 -0700 2009 Wed Dec 09 16:40:50 -0800 2009 This is the SciFi selection for the Goodreads SciFi and Fantasy Book Club for the month of December 2009. Visit this link to see all of the discussions, group member reviews, etc.

Meh.

Well, better than that — 3½ stars — but not as good as I'd hoped.

There were ...more...]]> 567798 1841492299 9781841492292 62 13 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175871827m/567798.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/567798.The_Algebraist 3 0 false Mon Dec 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Sep 13 13:55:40 -0700 2009 Mon Dec 14 13:45:19 -0800 2009 more...]]> 567798 1841492299 9781841492292 62 13 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175871827m/567798.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/567798.The_Algebraist 3 0 false Sat Nov 21 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Sep 10 09:34:00 -0700 2009 Sat Nov 21 12:22:19 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Sun May 17 20:22:13 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 23 19:32:02 -0700 2009
The Algebraist
by Iain M. Banks
Orbit 2004 (Time Warner)
534 pages
HC $42.00


Iain M. Banks...more...]]> 567798 1841492299 9781841492292 62 13 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175871827m/567798.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/567798.The_Algebraist 0 0 false Wed Oct 29 00:55:44 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 00:55:44 -0700 2008 more...]]> 886069 1841491551 9781841491554 17 1 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179185211m/886069.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/886069.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Sun Nov 29 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Aug 31 02:08:53 -0700 2008 Wed Dec 02 03:28:55 -0800 2009 Culture' novel it aint. Instead of the ultra liberal, machine intelligence integrated, chilled out society of the Culture, we have here an amoral, bureaucratic, hyper hierarchical, AI hating hegemony.
That's not a bad thing by the way, just different. You still ge...more...]]> 690606 0978159780 16 1 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1201732466m/690606.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/690606.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Tue Nov 07 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Aug 19 18:48:24 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 19 18:49:54 -0700 2008 The Algebraist is interesting and enjoyable, more for the little details that Banks throws in from time to time than the overall plot or characters. There's a central mystery here ...more...]]> 12009 1597800449 9781597800440 923 75 3.76 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166490847m/12009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009.The_Algebraist 4 0 false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Apr 13 09:30:07 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 09:31:10 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=886069