The State of the Art

by Iain M. Banks

Paperback, 224 pages

English language

Published May 27, 1993 by Orbit.

ISBN:: 978-1-85723-030-7

(80 reviews)

The first ever collection of Iain Banks’s short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale.

16 editions

Zéro Janvier reviewed The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks

State of the Art

4 stars

"The State of the Art" est le quatrième tome du cycle de la Culture de Iain M. Banks. Il a une particularité : c'est un recueil de nouvelles, le seul parmi les neuf romans qui composent le cycle.

L'ouvrage doit son titre à la nouvelle la plus longue du recueil, et peut-être la meilleure à mes yeux. Les autres nouvelles oscillent entre le bon et l'anecdotique, mais c'est vraiment "The State of the Art" qui donne au recueil tout son intérêt, avec peut-être "Descent" qui sort elle aussi du lot.

L'exercice de "noter" un recueil de nouvelles est toujours délicat, faut-il tenir compte du meilleur, du pire, ou d'une sorte de moyenne des nouvelles qui le composent ? Ici, j'ai choisi de rester sur la forte impression laissée par la nouvelle éponyme du recueil, même si dans l'ensemble le recueil est moins bon que les trois premiers romans du cycle.

Jack Miller reviewed The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks

Review of 'The State of the Art' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Rather uneven, but that's almost to be expected from a collection of early work.

The titular story, which takes up about half of the 200 pages, is the sort of science fiction payoff that everyone wants to read but is hard to do well and I'm not sure Banks really pulls it off. It describes the perspective of a highly advanced "enlightened" civilization (The Culture, naturally) on our local setting, the Earth of recent memory (circa 1977) rather than some distant analog serving as a metaphor or another wholly alien culture. Reading about aliens taking an unbiased view of our actual planet and ultimately deciding its fate is quite fun science fiction.

However, none of the moral hand-wringing or even calls to annihilate Earth ever really feel consequential thanks to the decision being left to The Culture who are always portrayed as far too measured and noble to negatively affect us in any way. The use of contemporary references like Star Trek, Star Wars, or David Bowie and the use of many major Western cities as a backdrop can also come off as a little lazy when the Culture lens doesn't add much. For example, the main character's view of divided East and West Berlin as post-modern political art is very interesting, but ship making requests on BBC or fashioning a lightsaber feels a little too much like Earth fan service. Ultimately, that's why I think The State of the Art is left as mediocre novella - the interest in the outsider view of real life is overwhelmed by a philosophical but toothless plot set in a relatively mundane location. Too much of Banks' creativity that I enjoy in the other Culture works is forced into hiding to serve the premise.

The rest of the stories are also quite a mixed bag. A Gift From the Culture and Descendant are good one session reads also in the Culture-verse. Odd Attachment was amusing and short. Cleaning Up was an entertaining retro-futuristic Cold War story. The remaining three stories, Piece, Road of Skulls, and Scratch were less successful in the end, although only Scratch was a complete failure (experiment all you want, but the result was unreadable garbage).

On balance there's more good than bad in this collection, but I wouldn't exactly call it essential reading either.

Allen Shull reviewed The State Of The Art by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #4)

Review of 'The State Of The Art' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Some decent stories, some (e.g. “Scratch”) that were probably better in design than in execution, but the longer two stories, “A Gift from the Culture” and “The State of the Art” are great explorations of Banks’s Culture seen as always from the views of outsiders; “State” has additionally a view of Earth society from that outsider-view. Several passages will be staying with me for some time.

nekokat reviewed The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks

Review of 'The State of the Art' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I put off reading this one for a long time, first because it didn't exist as an ebook, and then, even after I tracked down a paper copy, because I was reluctant to read the titular novella, the only remaining Culture story I hadn't read. It was great, of course. The rest of the stories vary. I still have plenty of Banks' other novels to read, but now I must live with the knowledge that there is no more unexplored Culture for me. RIP.

ospalh reviewed The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks

Review of 'The State of the Art' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I didn’t remember that i had already read this some times ago.
While i like to re-read some works, this one definitely isn’t one of them. I was mostly bored.
“A Gift from the Culture” was nice, but somewhat predictable. The title story was OK. Most stories i didn’t enjoy at all.

Kibrika reviewed The State Of The Art by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #4)

Review of 'The State Of The Art' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

All... right... This one was a bit strange. I kind of want to start reading it all over again to make sure if the pieces from the beginning match what my impression of what happened at the end was. On the other hand I want to wonderingly ask if I just had doom and gloom predicted at me.

Ikwezi reviewed The State Of The Art by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #4)

Review of 'The State Of The Art' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I only read the two Culture stories, not the rest. The back cover says the title story "adds definition and scale" to the Culture mythos, which I would agree with, but in the sense that it diminishes them by putting Earth alongside. And the dude converting to Catholicism was just a bit much.

Luke reviewed The State Of The Art by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #4)

Review of 'The State Of The Art' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Preferred some stories more than others but the longest, and title, story was my favourite. The fact it had counter arguments to how great the Culture is made it especially interesting.

Zivan reviewed The State Of The Art by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #4)

Review of 'The State Of The Art' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The actual story The State of the Art was a bit disappointing.
I had a different expectation, I thought contact would make contact with Earth and that sounded very exciting.
In stead I got allot of basic philosophy and economics and very little human interaction.

In general I preferred the short stories.
The story about the sentient plant was a masterpiece and had me giggling for days.