The State of the Art

infobox Book |
name = The State of the Art
orig title =
translator =


author = Iain M. Banks
cover_artist =
country = Scotland
language = English
series = The Culture
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Orbit
release_date = 1991
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 288 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-356-19669-0
preceded_by = Use of Weapons
followed_by = The Crow Road

"The State of the Art" is a collection of short fiction, mainly science fiction, by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1991.

ummary

In the title novella, a Culture ship visits Earth in 1977 and surveys it.

Description

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) has ideas, and a sense of humour, of its own.

'Also while I'd been away, the ship had sent a request on a postcard to the BBC's World Service, asking for 'Mr David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for the good ship "Arbitrary" and all who sail in her.' (This from a machine that could have swamped Earth's entire electro-magnetic spectrum with whatever the hell it wanted from somewhere beyond Betelgeuse.) It didn't get the request played. The ship thought this was hilarious.'

Of the other stories, "A Gift From the Culture" and "Descendant" are Culture stories, "Odd Attachment" is playfully macabre, "Road of Skulls" is a surreal and dark fantasy, and "Cleaning Up" is another, more humorous alien contact story.

"Piece" is a story about religious belief and ignorance, and "Scratch (or: The Present and Future of Species HS (sic) Considered as The Contents of a Contemporary Popular Record (qv))" is an experimental piece in a stream of consciousness style, drawing from adverts and newspaper extracts.

The collection was published in the US in 2004 by Night Shade Books, in hardback (ISBN 1-892389-38-X) and limited editions (ISBN 1-892389-99-1). The limited edition contains work by Banks not found in the UK version.

Literary significance & criticism

Banks has not published any other short fiction, suggesting that he finds the novel a more natural form. When arguments occur about whether "Consider Phlebas" or "The Player of Games" is the best introduction to the Culture, "The State of the Art" is seldom suggested, although it was the first written to have been published. (Much of Banks' early SF output is known to have been rewritten from earlier, unpublished work.)

"The State of the Art" 's character Diziet Sma is also a major character in "Use of Weapons". The story opens with Sma - the author of the story - 115 years later, working in Special Circumstances, suggesting that this is being written during one of the flashback periods of "Use of Weapons", if not the main body of the book.

The non-SF stories in the collection are the only ones he has published under his Iain M. Banks name, which is only usually used for his science fiction.

tories

#"Road of Skulls" - originally published in "20 under 35", Peter Straus (ed.) 1988, Sceptre, ISBN 0-340-48637-6. With the subtitle; "Original Stories by Britain’s Best New Writers", this anthology hoped to “showcase those writers who would emerge in the 1990s”.
#"A Gift from the Culture" - originally published in Interzone #20, Summer 1987 with illustrations by SMS.
#"Odd Attachment" - originally published in "Arrows of Eros", Alex Stewart (ed.) 1989, New English Library, ISBN 0-450-50249-X.
#"Descendant" - originally published in "Tales from the Forbidden Planet", Roz Kaveney (ed.) 1987, Titan Books, ISBN 1-85286-004-9.
#"Cleaning Up" - originally published in a limited edition of 500 by Birmingham Science Fiction Group as the Souvenir Book for Novacon 17 (1987) when Banks was Guest of Honour.
#"Piece" - originally published in The Observer Magazine on 13 August 1989 with illustrations by Peter Knock. "Piece" was also adapted for radio by Craig Warner and broadcast on BBC Radio 5, 6 June 1991.
#"The State Of The Art" - earlier versions of "The State of the Art" (Mark V. Ziesing, ISBN 0-929480-06-6) consisted of this story alone. As originally published as a stand alone novella in 1989, the cover art was by Arnie Fenner, and a limited edition of 400 books in a slipcase appeared, signed by both artist and author. It is being adapted by Paul Cornell for the Afternoon Play slot on BBC Radio 4 for broadcast in 2008. [ [http://paulcornell2.livejournal.com/15193.html paulcornell2 - Picocon, and Hey, I'm doing Banks for Radio 4! ] ]
#"Scratch" - originally published in The Fiction Magazine vol. 6, No. 6, Jul/Aug 1987.

References

External links

* [http://dannyreviews.com/h/State_Art.html Danny Yee's review]
* [http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/ Reviews]

Bibliography

"The State of the Art", Iain M. Banks, London : Orbit, 1991, ISBN 0-356-19669-0 (paperback ISBN 1-85723-030-2)