15 used & new from $42.46

See All Buying Options

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

The State of the Art Hardcover – August 1, 2005

by Iain M. Banks (Author)

35 customer reviews

See all 17 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Amazon Price New from Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$8.65

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

$115.91

$42.46

Paperback

"Please retry"

—

$69.06

$33.69

Audible, Unabridged

"Please retry"

—

$20.06

—

Mass Market Paperback

"Please retry"

—

$77.68

Iain M. Banks' only short-story collection, never before published in the US.

Contents:

* Road of Skulls
* A Gift from the Culture
* Odd Attachment
* Descendant
* Cleaning Up
* Piece
* The State of the Art
* Scratch
* A Few Notes On the Culture

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Iain M. Banks

160

Mass Market Paperback
$7.09
Iain M Banks

72

Paperback
$10.87
Iain M. Banks

109

Paperback
$21.59
Iain M. Banks

107

Hardcover
Iain M. Banks

78

Hardcover
Iain M. Banks

89

Paperback
$15.25

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Product Details

Hardcover: 188 pages
Publisher: Night Shade Books; First Expanded Edition edition (August 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 189238938X
ISBN-13: 978-1892389381
Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.8 x 8.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #806,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #567 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Short Stories
- #668 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Anthologies
- #1552 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Anthologies

Would you like to update product info, give feedback on images, or tell us about a lower price?

Important Information

Ingredients
Example Ingredients

Directions
Example Directions

Customer Reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars

5 star		51%
4 star		20%
3 star		20%
2 star		6%
1 star		3%

See all 35 customer reviews

Share your thoughts with other customers

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

Great sampling of his brilliance

By Michael Battaglia on March 18, 2003

Format: Paperback

There are a few versions of this floating around. The one pictured on top of this page is the one I'll be talking about and is a collection of short fiction. There's at least one other published earlier that only contains the title story. "The State of the Art" is probably what this book is best known for, it's over a hundred pages long and thus dominates by far all of the other stories in the volume. It's also by far the best, probably because the length allows Banks to really run with his ideas and themes. Basically his ultra-advanced Culture runs into Earth circa 1977 and decides to hang around and observe for a bit. This allows Banks to indulge in quite a bit of social commentary in the form of "aliens telling us what we do wrong" but he keeps it balanced,... some of the Culture think Earth is a great place and there are more than a few arguments that the Culture itself is stifling and stagnant (not that these are new arguments to anyone who has read the other Culture novels), all in all it feels like a complete novel as opposed to a novella, and just about everything works. The book is worth it just for that story. Fortunately the others are all pretty decent, most are pretty short and thus don't have as much impact either because they're just downright weird (the one with the sentinent tree or whatever was just odd) or experimental (the last story especially, I suspect I missed a wagon-load of comments on British society) but most of the others, such as the other Culture story or the guy stuck in the astronaut suit work just right and show the depth and extent of Banks' vision. He's not concerned with working in just SF or just genre fiction or "just" anything, his stories run the gamut and are unmistakeably his, in whatever genre or strange mix thereof. These new to Banks would be wise to sample this and see what he's capable of before moving onto the (hard as it is to believe) vastly better novels. I wish I could say he's underrated, but it wouldn't be true.

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

Simply the best sci-fi short story of the last 20 years.

By A Customer on February 23, 1999

Format: Hardcover

Look at it this way - State of The Art is a great short story with some additional filler between the covers. But what a great short story it is. State of The Art finds the Culture arriving at Earth in 1978. By all accounts, the outlook is bleak for the human race. Contact, and our favorite Culture gal Dziet Sma, have to decide whether to get in touch with a world locked in a seemingly desperate arms race and the slow and painful destruction of the planet's ecosystem. Banks casts an ascerbic eye over the "state of the art" - both the Culture's and Earth's. By setting the story in the recent past, the reader knows that if the Culture had turned up just 10 years later the whole story would be different. Or would it? Sma and her crew-mates travel around the world sampling the delights and the horrors of Earth. Despite various cosmetic changes, is the planet in any better shape than it was 21 years ago? Is the Earth beyond hope? In a fitting gesture to the Culture's perverse tolerance for dissent, a crew member decides to stay. Why? And what, asks Banks, makes us human - and the Culture alien? A clever, philosophic and beautifully written story. Worth the price of the book alone.

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

Not a short story collection.

By "nwc18" on July 14, 2001

Format: Hardcover

...this is not a collection. There is a short-story collection of Banks', but it was only released by his British publisher (Orbit, in 1991). That collection is also called The State of the Art (the title novella does takes up close to 2/3 of the book...)... Any edition that is from 1989, or published by Mark V Ziesing, is the origional American version and only contains the novella.
Hope that helps out.

1 Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Entertaining collection of stories, but be sure of the edition you have...

By R S Cobblestone VINE VOICE on June 28, 2009

Format: Paperback

There are at least two editions of this book around (I've got two in front of me as I write this), and there is a significant difference in addition to the cover art. The two editions I have are The State Of The Art (Night Shade Books) and The State of the Art (Orbit UK edition). The reviews posted on Amazon are the same for both editions, causing some confusion.

The Orbit edition has the following eight short stories:

- Road of Skulls
- A Gift from the Culture
- Odd Attachment
- Descendant
- Cleaning Up
- Piece
- The State of the Art
- Scratch

The Night Shade edition has these same stories plus an extra 21 pages of a "non-fiction" chapter titled "A Few Notes on the Culture." These notes are written in the form of a letter from author Iain M Banks to the reader, ending with "Anyway, that's more than enough of me pontificating. With best wishes for the future, Iain M Banks (Sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry)."

If you are a Culture fan, you'll want the Night Shade Books edition.

If you just want to read an interesting collection of (mostly) sci-fi stories, you can read either! "Odd Attachment" has a unique spin on the "she loves me, she loves me not" petal-pulling exercise. I also liked "Descendant", about the relationship between a man and an intelligent space suit. "The State of the Art" was almost 100 pages, and is about a Culture Contact team visiting Earth in 1977.

This is a book written for fans of both Iain M Banks and the Culture!

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

A strong collection.

By A. Whitehead on April 7, 2009

Format: Paperback

The State of the Art is Iain M. Banks first, and to date only, short story collection. It was originally published in 1991 and features both genre and mainstream fiction, as well as three stories set in his signature Culture setting.

The collection opens with 'Road of Skulls', a sort of jaunty little SF-fantasy tale with a Douglas Adams-esque comic conclusion. It's fun but very slight and very short. 'A Gift from the Culture', about a Culture citizen living undercover on a recently-Contacted world, is better but a bit odd. It's not a story by itself but feels like the opening chapter to a longer novel which ends in a rather pointless and abrupt manner. Interesting, and perhaps meant to convince us that Culture citizens aren't flawless, but still not the best story I've read.

'Odd Attachment' is dark and very funny, bringing a certain Monty Python and the Holy Grail scene to mind. This film is possibly a Banks touchstone, as he both appeared in the movie (he's one of the extras in the final scene) and referenced the rabbit scene in The Wasp Factory as well. 'Descendant', the second Culture story, is a story of survival and the bond between a man and his sentient spacesuit. A macabre and most effective story.

'Cleaning Up' is brilliant, a very funny SF novel about what happens to Earth when an alien spaceship accidentally dumps a load of rejected consumer products on the planet. From the evidence presented here (not to mention the humorous streaks in his other books), Banks could do a great SF comedy, and I'm surprised he's never tried to do it at novel length. 'Piece' is more sobering, a mainstream story reflecting on terrorism and the arguments of science versus faith and God versus evolution. A very thoughtful and prescient story with a gut-punch twist ending.Read more ›

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

See all 35 customer reviews (newest first)

Write a customer review

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Five Stars

This book reminds me of watermellons

Published 3 months ago by David Wilson

OK for Banks Culture Fans

I am a huge Banks / Culture fan and was really looking forward to something special here - especially the notes on the culture. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Richie

I'm in love with the Culture series

I'm in love with the Culture series. This wonderful collection of short stories forwards that vision with a novella and a couple shorts, and a few other brilliantly imaginative... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Patrick Finnigan

Banks for the connoisseur

State of the Art is a collection of stories from Banks in both the Culture universe and from the same style of his many more contemporary thrillers. Read more

Published 12 months ago by suburban dissident

Where Earth fits in the Culture universe

A fascinating collection of short stories. Some gems and some that do not work so well.
The centre piece is the novella "State of the Art" which firmly places Earth in... Read more

Published 15 months ago by KrazyKlaus

Fair Enough

Never really connected with me. It was just okay. A relatively short work and it just left me unfulfilled. Read more

Published 17 months ago by Allen King

short stories

short stories are good...but...you have to remember that they are going to be very short. Makes you want more Banks

Published 21 months ago by ReadingAddict

Iain M. Banks is one of the world's finest authors and The State of...

The "Culture" universe created by Banks is one of the most complete, consistent and fantastically visualized futures yet written by any author. Read more

Published 23 months ago by Kindle Customer

Why is this book so hard to get?

In "The State of the Art" Banks deals with the Culture (an advanced++ and peaceful galaxy wide collection of societies) and its contact with earth. Read more

Published on July 2, 2013 by L. Barnes

Bite-sized Iain Banks

Odds are if you're considering this collection of short stories, you're already a fan of Banks. So, go ahead and buy it, because it's just as interesting as everything else the man... Read more

Published on July 15, 2012 by Brian K. Stearman