{"id":1131,"date":"2026-01-03T21:14:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/culture-04-use-of-weapons-banks-iain\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T21:14:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:14:52","slug":"culture-04-use-of-weapons-banks-iain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/culture-04-use-of-weapons-banks-iain\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture 04 – Use of Weapons – Banks, Iain"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n

body {font-family: verdana} .chapter {padding-top: 5%; padding-bottom:<\/b> 5%} p {text-align:justify; }<\/b><\/p>\n

Published: 1990. ISBN: 1 85723 135 X<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00b7 ‘Slight Mechanical Destruction’ <\/b><\/p>\n

I blame Ken MacLeod for the whole thing. It was his idea to argue the old<\/b> warrior out of retirement, and he suggested the fitness program, too. <\/b><\/p>\n

‘Slight Mechanical Destruction’ <\/b><\/p>\n

Zakalwe enfranchised; <\/b><\/p>\n

Those lazy curls of smoke above the city, <\/b><\/p>\n

Black wormholes in the air of noontime’s bright Ground Zero. <\/b><\/p>\n

Did they tell you what you wanted to be told? <\/b><\/p>\n

Or rain-skinned on a concrete fastness, <\/b><\/p>\n

Fortress island in the flood; <\/b><\/p>\n

You walked amongst the smashed machines, <\/b><\/p>\n

And looked through undrugged eyes<\/b><\/p>\n

For engines of another war, <\/b><\/p>\n

And an attrition of the soul and the device. <\/b><\/p>\n

With craft and plane and ship, <\/b><\/p>\n

And gun and drone and field you played, and<\/b><\/p>\n

Wrote an allegory of your regress<\/b><\/p>\n

In other people’s tears and blood; <\/b><\/p>\n

The tentative poetics of your rise<\/b><\/p>\n

From a mere and shoddy grace. <\/b><\/p>\n

And those who found you, <\/b><\/p>\n

(‘Hey, my boy, it’s you and us knife missiles now,<\/b> Our lunge and speed and bloody secret:<\/b><\/p>\n

The way to a man’s heart is through his chest!’)<\/b><\/p>\n

– They thought you were their plaything, <\/b><\/p>\n

Savage child; the throwback from wayback<\/b><\/p>\n

Utopia spawns few warriors. <\/b><\/p>\n

But you knew your figure cut a cipher<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview body {font-family: verdana} .chapter {padding-top: 5%; padding-bottom: 5%} p {text-align:justify; } Published: 1990. ISBN: 1 85723 135 X \u00b7 ‘Slight Mechanical Destruction’ I blame Ken MacLeod for the whole thing. It was his idea to argue the old warrior out of retirement, and he suggested the fitness program, too. ‘Slight Mechanical Destruction’ Zakalwe … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-iain-banks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}