Surface Detail - Spoilers

[PS Thanks for Coming]

I guess - for me it seemed like IMB came up with a cool idea - Bulbitians - then realised they served no purpose and wrote it out of the novel. Sorry, I always go for the practical author angle first!

[Champagne Socialist]

Or it's just an idea that took his fancy and he wants to create the feeling of a more full and diverse universe

[PS Thanks for Coming]

Or he was once almost killed whilst visiting a Bulbitian and wanted to warn others of the danger.

[Champagne Socialist]

TMH admitted that character reveal (I'm avoiding spoilers) at the end was a "cheat" added on after the rest of the book was finished.

[Deep Black]

I wonder what made him add it in?

[Champagne Socialist]

I got the impression that the fancy just took him.

[John.E.Smoke]

Demeison the avatar was an outstanding character, really made the novel. There was nothing wrong with Lededjie either, but Veppers was a bore. Like going after Rupert Murdoch. I also thought he deserved the death that those Chelgrian conspirators got at the end of LTW.

and Zakalwe needs to be bloody killed off. And the moron that gave the spoiler away on Wikifecalmatter deserves torture and anhiliation.

[PS Thanks for Coming]

I will not have this Veppers hating...

I thought he was a very well-developed character and the time spent on him in the novel was useful for giving the middle ground on the hells, and the way something deeply significant to some groups can be merely trivial or just business to other outside parties like Veppers, just in it for the money.

I know why people didn't like the character, he was not a decent enough "baddie" and he was never too threatening to make you think the Culture wouldn't deal with him easily at the end. My point is that he was not a true baddie, more of representation of how evil things can come to be if nobody stops them. I also don't think he was a flat 2D character (which is maybe why people think he is no good as a "baddie" character - but then his flaws were shown, in my opinion, for exactly that reason; he is not Lueferous or some other base-level sadist, he's just an arrogant man - and worse, he is in the vicious self-peretuating cycle that is being at once successful and arrogant.

Anyway, I'll get down off my box - I love Demeisen: if we were a ship, we'd all be the most powerful on of our time; if we were the most powerful thing in the skies, we'd all be utterly confident and have some fun with everyone. Like the Killing Time, the Falling Outside... is lethal, but the humour carried with it is immense. I love that you can imagine TMH smiling as he wrote Demeisen's dialogue

[richardgaywood]

This was a great thread. Gave me some real food for thought -- I came to the conclusion that SC had been behind the outcome of the War in Heaven, that Zakalwe was an (unwilling, unknowing) weapon, and that as a side benefit the Culture managed to wreck some subtle plans the one alien race had to somehow Sublime but stay in play via the Bulbitian.

One thing bothered me, however: Lededje's age. I didn't get any impression from the narrative that she was old; she makes no reference to memory surgery, for example. But:

Grautze and Veppers had been best friends since their school days and had been in business together since the beginning of their commercial careers ... they used a paired set of antique knives that Lededje's great-grandfather had presented to Veppers' grandfather, decades earlier...

So Veppers and Lededje's father were the same age. And how old was Veppers?

"I am the most frightfully old man really, you know."
"One hundred and seventy-eight, is that true?"
"One hundred and seventy eight-ish," he agreed.
...
"those memories all had to be excised decades ago to leave me room for new memories."

This confused me somewhat. Did I miss an explanation anywhere?

[Deep Black]

Hello there Richard.

If it was Lededjes great-grandfather & Veppers grandfather, that leaves lots of scope for decades of age difference.

The "ish" could be a big ish.

My wifes father died a few years back he was 85-ish & had a granddaughter (his 1st) of 2 years old when he died.
You hear of people on the news being a grandfather in their 20s