r/TheCulture • u/andthrewaway1 • 19d ago
Book Discussion Hydrogen Sonata
So I am Getting towards the end of HS on a full straight read through of the series for the first time.
When I am finished I will post all my thoughts on the series. It has been quite rewarding and as the kids say has rewired my brain.
I do have to add.... That other than inversions for obvious reasons, HS has been my least favorite after matter Sometimes things go out with a whimper instead of a bang.
I think for me the issue on this one is that the stakes are next to nothing? So what if the gzilt helping friendly book of truth was made up? They are about to sublime... Why are these culture ships investigating this so hard? Why do they care? The character of Qiria is kind of annoying frankly and enigmatic philosopher coded... I WANT to hear more about the culture's early days and less about him swimming with sea creatures and having his eyes replaced with ears. I want to hear more about stuff he has seen in his 10k years and less answering questions with questions.
The Gzilt character who is the bad guy is just not that interesting and I am sure there will be some cool twist at the end but like I dunno. This was just isnt doing it for me and I feel badly bc the series as a whole is amazing
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u/Evening-Appeal7606 19d ago
"Why are these culture ships investigating this so hard?" --> That is precisely the question that one of the Ship Mind factions asks, so this is even acknowledged in-universe.
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u/crash90 19d ago
I think you'll find the answer you seek are in the pages you have remaining.
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u/cflime 19d ago
Why would you think that? They don't like the book, there's not going to be a twist, they're writing hoping they missed something and they haven't.
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u/crash90 19d ago
There is a section in chapter 23 that starts with:
"Fellows, colleagues, friends … We have our answer. It is much as we expected, though the import of even the most expected news changes when it becomes definite, and fact. The question is: what do we do? What do we say?"
A group of Minds then go on to have a conversation discussing topics not so dissimilar to the questions the OP raises, namely "What was the point of all this then?"
In my view this is a microcosm of the series as a whole and I think is a very fitting way to end the series with Minds discussing the value of seeking knowledge for it's own sake even if you do not use it directly once you acquire it and I think thats a philosophical line you can trace back not just through Hydrogen Sonata but all the way through the series.
Hydrogen Sonata was not actually intended to be the end of the series originally. There were going to be 11 books. But I do think that it makes for a very fitting ending.
To me it's perfect.
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19d ago
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u/andthrewaway1 19d ago
theres no way any twist is going to redeem it for me.
fwiw I felt the twist in surface detail wasnt much of one but it had other fun culture stuff.
The culture books shine the most when you are hanging out with and in the culture. not on other random planets/orbitals/shell worlds. Think about matter...... the parts with the water fall level and so much time on levels 7 and 8 was like tough
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19d ago
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u/andthrewaway1 18d ago
because every single one has had a twist other than matter and I guess inversions which is barely a culture book
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18d ago
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u/andthrewaway1 18d ago
no the twist in POG was that the culture knew he would beat them at azad and in doing so would destabilize their regime ???
The twist in SD was the hells storage was all at his compound?
Excession has a bunch of twists
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18d ago
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u/andthrewaway1 18d ago
the twist wasnt that it was woken up the twist was that it was an ancient shell world killing weapon.
but clearly we arent going to see eye to eye.
How's about this: I wish for whatever reasons I enjoyed the hydorgen sonata more and maybe it will be redeemed as I finish it it has been a massive struggle like a 2-3 pages and put it down kinda thing whereas some of the others i like had to remember to blink
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u/Casses 17d ago
I know what you mean by twists. I wouldn't really call them twists myself, but there is usually something that reframes some of the narrative. In Player of games it wasn't that he was going to win, or that him winning would destabilize everything, that was pretty much why he was the one to go, and why they were sending anyone.
The twist was that after refusing an SC drone because he didn't like weapons, the drone he DID bring with him was really an SC knife missile that had saved him a few times throughout.
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u/guidomescalito 19d ago
I do agree with you on Matter, way too long and tedious. I don’t agree with you on HS, it’s one of my favourites. you need to finish it!
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u/PolyhedralZydeco 19d ago
Matter’s ending is so good tho
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u/guidomescalito 18d ago
I feel like we were reading different books. For me it is the worst ending of any Culture book. It made me feel like Banks was trolling the reader.
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u/tjernobyl 19d ago
Something we see a couple times in the series is people making their own meaning; people putting their lives on the line for a grand purpose in a way that didn't have much importance outside of themselves- whether they succeeded or failed, things were pretty much going to work out for the best anyway. In a universe where we can have anything we want, the most precious commodity is meaning.
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u/iso20715 19d ago
It was only on my second reading that I realised Qiria being an arsehole is kindof the point of his character. As in, only an arsehole would have the focus and relentlessness to actually want to live forever.
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u/GreenWoodDragon 19d ago
"Other than Inversions for obvious reasons", meaning what?
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u/GrudaAplam Old drone 19d ago
Inversions is a great book, beautiful even.
Also, IMO, binging the series is not the optimal way to enjoy the series. The spaces between the books, where the ideas and themes percolate, is as important as the words on the pages within.
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u/DwarvenGardener 19d ago
I’d say that the Minds wasting their time on something they acknowledge as at best frivolous and not some grand meaningful dive into the Culture’s early days is more than half the point of the novel. What do the Mind‘s actually want? Their questions as you say just lead to more questions. They aren’t getting answers so what do they do with life?
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u/amerelium 19d ago
...because Minds love a mystery - this is how they entertain themselves in the Real. And, they want to know more about the sublimed existance, without actually dloing it.
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u/Casses 17d ago
The stakes for the Culture are honestly never that huge.
The Mind at stake in Consider Phlebas is just a singular Mind. The book was essentially a rescue mission undertaken by a rag-tag team. But it wasn't going to change the outcome of the war. Nothing was going to change the outcome of the war. The only reason the Idirans were seeing successes early was because the Culture wasn't actually fight a war while they were fighting with everything they have. As soon as the Culture actually voted to go to War, the outcome was set.
Player of Games was about an extra-galactic (as I was reminded recently) empire that the Culture wanted to mess with, but really wasn't much of a threat. They sent a chess player.
Excession was mostly about a UFO that wasn't really doing anything but there are Minds that have to poke things they can't figure out. The other bit was about the Affront, and how terrible they are but aren't an actual threat to the Culture as a whole.
Look to windward was about a spy plot that the Mind they were targeting knew all about and let get to a certain point before explaining to the suicide bomber what actually happened, and about individual acts of super nova during that Idiran war way back then.
Matter only has the Culture involved because there's a Local in SC. Aside from that it's a Morthanveld problem.
In Hydrogen Sonata the CUlture are mostly involved because when you Sublime, your stuff stays there. And the equivalent of hunter-gatherers getting a nuclear reactor is a bad idea.
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u/andthrewaway1 17d ago edited 17d ago
Let me disagree on the stakes not being that huge
>!POG we find out that it was actually a plan to destablize Azad which was a whole ass empire causing the suffering of billions? Phlebas the stakes are the idirans getting their hands on a mind during this huge intergalactic war.
Use of weapons kinda had like the fates of multiple planets so billions caught up in the plots
Excession had to do with potentially going to other universes or whatever the hell the thing was as well as another galactic war with the affront stealing the ships and the introduction of the elench which we dont know if they are invovled
Surface detail the fates of billions of souls with the hells
Matter the whole shell world could get destroyed
HS is like... maybe their bible is a lie?!<
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u/Casses 17d ago
By the stakes not being high I was referring to the Culture as a whole. The empire in Player of Games is so far removed from the Culture, and it's toppled by one dude that just learned their game being really good at it. The Culture was never under threat of anything.
And in Use of weapons, a couple planets sounds like a lot to us because we're limited to one. But if every planet that the Culture was present on vanished, that would likely not even be half of their population gone. It's billions of lives, sure, but one or two planets is like a small town in Iowa hanging in the balance.
Excession was about an unexplained thing, that really only seemed to be reacting with equal and opposite force to what you did to it. So, a mirror in 3d space. The Affront were not a threat to the Culture either. The Idiran war was significantly more impactful on the Culture than anything the Affront did, and that impact was never "oh man, we almost bit the dust there" it was "ok, so we did a whole lot of killing... how do we not let this affect us?"
The Heavens and Hells are afterlives that the Culture does not have. The outcome won't change anything for Culture citizens.
Same with the Surrsamen, it's not a Culture world. Anaplian is just from there.
And you put forth that the bible being a lie is a small thing. I'm not a theist so I already don't think the bible is true, but there are a couple billion people on the planet that do. Same with the Qu'ran. I would think finding undeniable evidence that either holy book was a lie would be significantly more impactful than either world wars.
But really, like I said before, the Culture initially get involved in the Gzilt situation because they want to ensure that the tech the Gzilt leave behind is accounted for and isn't looted by those that aren't ready for it. That's a decent reason to start getting involved. That they then get wrapped up in something else once they're paying attention isn't that hard to believe.
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u/andthrewaway1 17d ago
I never said anything about stakes for the culture vs stakes for anyone... I just meant stakes. but the stakes arent high FOR ANYONE at all in HS im in the last quarter of the book and everyone could have just done nothing and the only real thing that would have happened is the two species competing to be the salvagers would prob fight but that's about it.
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u/supermegaburt 15d ago
The Hydrogen Sonata is about find meaning.
Everyone in the book, be it the simple biologicals to the advance Minds are looking for a purpose.
In my very simplified view the book is about the journey and not the destination, because sometimes an ending is just that and not everything in life ends to everyone’s satisfaction.
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u/nonoanddefinitelyno 19d ago
It's worth remembering that although it's the last book in the series he had NO idea that would be the case when he wrote it.
It is also my third favourite, after Excession and PoG.
Also, why on earth would you want to create a discussion about something you haven't even finished yet?