this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
133 points (95.9% liked)

Asklemmy

43962 readers
1316 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] case_when@feddit.uk 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Excession, by Iain M Banks.

Genar-Hofoen felt the Diplomatic Force officer's kiss through the few millimetres' thickness of the gelfield suit as a moderately sharp impact on his jaw followed by a powerful sucking that might have led someone less experienced in the diverse and robust manifestations of Affronter friendliness to conclude that the being was either trying to suck his teeth out through his cheek or had determined to test whether a Culture Gelfield Contact/Protection Suit, Mk 12, could be ripped off its wearer by a localised partial vacuum.  What the crushingly powerful four-limbed hug would have done to a human unprotected by a suit designed to withstand pressures comparable to those found at the bottom of an ocean probably did not bear thinking about, but then a human exposed without protection to the conditions required to support Affronter life would be dying in at least three excitingly different and painful ways anyway without having to worry about being crushed by a cage of leg-thick tentacles.

Gorgeous.

[–] seaQueue@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Our friend with a need for speed is probably my favorite plot thread weave of any of his books. Excession did a great job of lulling you into thinking certain things were happening then absolutely slapped the universe with a different sequence of events, it's such a fun read.

Look to Windward is absolutely excellent as well.

[–] case_when@feddit.uk 1 points 8 months ago

Look to Windward is my favourite. The Ways of Dying monologue is hauntingly beautiful.

[–] Chef_Boyargee@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

I’m partial to Player of Games, but Excession was great.