[HN Gopher] Consider Phlebas Published by the Folio Society
___________________________________________________________________
Consider Phlebas Published by the Folio Society
Author : saltysalt
Score : 84 points
Date : 2023-03-21 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.foliosociety.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.foliosociety.com)
| rsynnott wrote:
| Slightly odd that they went for possibly the least-beloved
| Culture novel. I suppose it's the first published (though not the
| first written, IIRC), but it's not a _great_ representation of
| the series.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| Amazon is theoretically making an adaptation of it Any Day Now
| (tm). So perhaps it has marginally more name recognition than
| Player of Games.
| Rzor wrote:
| * * *
| danielodievich wrote:
| If you like high quality books, Folio Society editions are
| difficult to beat. I some recent releases bought direct and some
| older ones from Ebay at home. Neil Gaiman's American Gods and
| Anansi Boys are particularly lovely, great feeling paper, amazing
| illustrations, the cover design is incredible, and of course the
| typography is top notch. From the older releases, I have a few
| history books - like the history of Enigma machine, 700 year old
| biography Chenghiz Khan, and a book about Silk Road.
|
| From some of the more recent books, check out the Strugatsky
| brothers famous https://www.foliosociety.com/row/roadside-
| picnic.html, also available in 500 copies limited edition for a
| lot more. So want!
|
| I need more book shelf space.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I'm still disappointed that Subterranean Press only published Use
| of Weapons.
|
| It's a fantastic publication, fwiw.
|
| https://subterraneanpress.com/use-of-weapons/
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| One of my favorite books of all time.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| Use of Weapons horrific big moment made it particularly
| memorable to me and definitely not unusual for Ian M Banks.
|
| Feersum Endjinn differently horrifying with its core premise of
| an actual hell and heaven existence for beings.
|
| And finally The Wasp Factory is all about a very disturbed
| individual.
| buserror wrote:
| Possibly my favourite. My dog-eared copy is signed... twice...
| too. He used to come and read in Windsor, UK on occasion...
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Have a chair. No, sit. We must talk about the Player of Games
| and your lack of gravitas.
| dekhn wrote:
| my least favorite. The Player of Games, Excession and the
| Hydrogen Sonata for me.
| arglebargle123 wrote:
| My favourite plot twist in the entire series is our friend
| wih a need for speed in Excession. That book is one of my
| all time favourite reads.
| taylorius wrote:
| I'd agree with that - the out of order story line always
| put me off in Use of Weapons. Seemed unnecessary. As for
| his best, I'd add Look to Windward to your list. That's a
| beautiful, moving book.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Yes, it is. The couple going into the sunsets.
| dekhn wrote:
| a remarkable number of books I've read recently are
| basically: a present day chapter, then a flashback
| chapter, eventually leading up to a tense moment in the
| present day that only makes sense once you have the
| flashback context.
|
| Gets boring quickly!
| r00fus wrote:
| Surface Detail for me after Player of Games, though I've
| read all of his Culture series. The Mind of picket ship has
| got to be one of my favorite characters in the series.
|
| All by audiobook, which honestly is a completely different
| experience than a physical read - perhaps I should check
| out one of his books and re-experience via text?
| dekhn wrote:
| The ship AIs in the culture are clearly the most
| interesting characters. The exchanges between the AIs in
| Excession (the Interesting Times Gang) are absolutely
| hilarious.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| What was special / good about that publication?
|
| It's signed by somebody I can best understand as "Not Ian M.
| Banks", and the description doesn't really tell me anything
| about "hardware", nor do they have a photo of the product :-/
| Veen wrote:
| Yeah, I mean, Ken McLeod is a decent enough writer, but he's
| not in the same league as Banks. Can't imagine why I'd want
| to pay that much for a copy of a Banks book signed by him.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I wouldn't mind an edition of H.P. Lovecraft writings
| signed by August Derleth, or a Tolkien book signed by C.S.
| Lewis (or vice versa), and so on. A _Discworld_ novel
| signed by Neil Gaiman.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| If you like Gaiman there are some _very_ nice copies of
| his works from some smaller fine press publishers.
|
| https://www.arete-editions.com/artists-edition
|
| https://www.lyrasbooks.com/shop/coraline/coraline-
| lettered-e...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Ken is a lifelong friend of Iain's, and wrote many prefaces
| and seems to be his kind of literary executor, publishing
| e.g. early poems as well as sketches related to The Culture:
|
| https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/14019050.friend-
| kee...
| iamacyborg wrote:
| SubPress make very good, high quality books. Sometimes it's
| just quite nice to own a nicely made physical object for
| something you deeply enjoy.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Right, but at $250, can anybody provide any details of how
| good these high quality books are?
|
| I don't know if I came off antagonistic, but I'm actually
| coming from position of genuine curiosity; the webpage
| linked describes _plot of the book_ (I love Mr. Banks to
| death and have gifted use of weapons to more than one
| person, so I 'm _interested_ in a good copy:), but it doesn
| 't have a photo of the product, and doesn't tell me where
| my $250 go to - what is the binding? What is the paper? Is
| there special typeset? Are there some bespoke
| illustrations? What is, actually, good about it? (to other
| people's points, I'm sure Mr. McLeod is a fine writer and a
| splendid human being, and to some his signature on Iain M.
| Banks' book adds value, sentimental or otherwise; it does
| not to me but that's subjective:).
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Yeah the product page is quite lacking, normally subpress
| do a much better job of highlighting what makes one of
| their editions special
| arglebargle123 wrote:
| I do most of my reading on a high end eink device these
| days and I still get excited when I can buy sub press
| epubs. Even their digital releases are great quality.
| blueridge wrote:
| I love a properly made book, though I don't buy Folio Society
| books due to the illustrations. Don't get my wrong, they're
| beautiful, but any time a book has illustrations it feels like I
| don't get to use my imagination (as much) for world building. The
| drawings seem to overwrite my own image-making process for
| characters, environments, etc. I don't like it.
|
| Another example: I was re-reading the Lord of the Rings recently
| and I couldn't get Peter Jackson's big screen images out of my
| head while reading. Same thing with Gaiman's Norse Mythology--for
| the first few stories all I could see was Chris Hemsworth's Thor,
| running around in my head as I read Gaiman's interpretation.
|
| In time, my mind seems to come up with its own imagery that's a
| mash-up of all the worlds and art and images I've seen. But I
| still want to "do the work" while reading. It feels like
| illustrations alongside text rob my mind of that opportunity, and
| give me a ready-made world with details and characteristics and
| visuals that are not my own.
| dekhn wrote:
| When I read norse mythology, I can't unsee this:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159017125X (D'Aulaire's Book
| of Norse Myths)
| bitwize wrote:
| The illustrations in their Greek myths book _were_ how the
| Greek gods and heroes looked to me for many years.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| To me they looked like this:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemision_Bronze
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| Very nice, thank you.
|
| Tangent: "Originally, they used stone lithography for their
| illustrations. A single four-color illustration required four
| slabs of Bavarian limestone that weighed up to two hundred
| pounds apiece."
|
| (Stone stone-writing stimulates my department of redundancy
| department ...)
| lancesells wrote:
| I feel exactly the same way. I would love to buy these books
| with the beautiful cover and production without the
| illustrations. The magic of a book of fiction is you get to
| imagine.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I often get a similar phenomenon, for better or worse. I kind
| of have this rule: read the book first if there's a movie/show
| about it, then watch the movie/show, then read the book again.
| This helps me avoid "the book is better" (sometimes -- it's a
| rare case where the audiovisual format excels, but it happens).
|
| First reading I get my imagination and expectations. Watching
| the movie/show lets me know how others interpreted it.
|
| If it was a well made, casted, and acted depiction, then the
| 2nd reading often will conjure images of specific scenes,
| actors, soundtracks, etc. even if it wasn't quite what I
| imagined initially. If it was a poor adaptation, rereading the
| book reminds me that my imagination was better.
|
| To date I can only think of two movies that captured their
| respective novels nearly identically to my imagination (within
| reason, given content and technological limitations):
|
| - Phillip K Dick / Richard Linklater - A Scanner Darkly -
| Michael Crichton / Barry Levinson - Sphere - Ted Chiang / Denis
| Villanueve - Story of Your Life (Arrival) - Bret Easton Ellis /
| Roger Avery - The Rules of Attraction - Alex Garland / Danny
| Boyle - The Beach
|
| I often wonder if the influence of the authors of these books
| upon the production of the movies was a factor, but I've seen
| plenty movies where the original author had lots of
| input/approval and the result was a mess. Dunno.
| nottorp wrote:
| > I was re-reading the Lord of the Rings recently and I
| couldn't get Peter Jackson's big screen images out of my head
| while reading.
|
| Why? You shouldn't be able to get Alan Lee's illustrations out
| of your head while watching the movie :)
| mkehrt wrote:
| Such a weird choice. I'd love a copy of Use of Weapons or maybe
| Excession.
| donohoe wrote:
| For those who loved Iain M. Banks culture books, what else did
| you find compelling?
| dancemethis wrote:
| ...It's NOT the Polio Society...?
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I always found it funny that the hero of the first Culture novel
| is a guy who hates the Culture and wants to destroy them.
|
| I liked Horza btw. I guess I have a thing for lost causes.
| jaqalopes wrote:
| Consider Phlebas was such an odd entry point into the Culture
| series. In a way it makes more sense as a prequel, to be read
| after you understand the world and the general conceit of the
| series. In fact, I think Consider Phlebas _is_ better upon
| rereading than it was going in cold. In this light, I 'm kind of
| surprised I went on to read the other books after starting with
| this one. But, I'm incredibly glad I did, and I recommend them to
| anyone with an interest in far-future sociological sci-fi.
| segphault wrote:
| Your comment makes me wonder if I should give the series
| another chance. I only read Consider Phlebas and didn't
| continue with the series because I found the book so
| frustrating. It felt like there was a ton of context missing. I
| kept expecting it to provide some details about the culture
| that would justify the protagonist's antipathy towards it, but
| a coherent explanation for his world view never materialized.
| empedocles wrote:
| That was my experience, but I am glad that I tried again.
| Player of Games is much more explicit in the world building
| (almost too much), and then a good balance is found in Use of
| Weapons. So I always recommend reading those two first before
| circling back to really understand the value of Consider
| Phlebas as an outside view on the Culture (and really, The
| West).
| TrevorJ wrote:
| Yeah, I would pick up another book in the series. Consider
| Phlebas is set in the same universe but almost seems like a
| different genre.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Excession is spectacular. The focus is on the machine
| intelligence as opposed to the people.
| stcroixx wrote:
| That's where I started and it's still my favorite. Hooked
| me hard.
| jimjimjim wrote:
| Totally. I've re-read excession multiple times and it's
| still my favorite.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I felt it a good introduction for the same reason as it was the
| first written book: Banks didn't know how to tell a story about
| the Culture without trying to attack the Culture and find its
| flaws and outsiders. The edition I read even had a foreword to
| that effect. Obviously, he found far more interesting outsiders
| and flaws as the series progressed, but it is still interesting
| to see that "bootstrap moment" in Consider Phlebas as he works
| to find the right hooks in a way that feels almost like "in
| real time".
| doctoboggan wrote:
| I just finished reading Consider Phlebas, and am starting
| Player of Games now! I tried to find reading order lists online
| and most just recommended publication order. I hope I didn't
| ruin anything.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It's true that it's an awkward entry point, but it's not
| necessarily a bad one. It's the worst book of the series imo,
| so if I wanted someone to read the whole series I wouldn't
| start them there.
|
| But it also covers events that are directly or indirectly
| significant to the plot or setting of... most... of the other
| books. So if you _are_ going to read them all, you get more
| out of the rest for having read it first.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| Good to hear you think its one of the weaker ones, I didn't
| love it personally. (I thought the setting was awesome but
| struggled a little bit with the motivations of most of the
| characters). I've heard enough good things about the series
| however to know I am going to read most/all of them! Which
| book if your favorite?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I remember liking Look to Windward and Excession a lot, I
| think because they're centrally about the lives and
| motivations of the minds. For that reason though they may
| be better later, once you've got more exposure to and
| questions about their actions and experiences.
|
| Surface Detail also really stuck with me for its unique
| conflict & setting. It's about a war over the fates of
| people unwillingly uploaded into a simulation of hell
| after their deaths. With the soldiers being continually
| "reincarnated" back into different iterations of the same
| fight. Banks has a really unsettling edge to a lot of his
| stuff that is just barely kept out of view in a lot of
| the culture books, but this one he just lets it rip and
| it's very effective.
| rsynnott wrote:
| There are _largely_ no spoilers. I think Look to Windward
| might have very minor ones for Phlebas, but largely the
| novels are all set in the same universe, but more or less
| standalone.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| A few months ago I did the same thing you did, and I enjoyed
| Player of Games a lot more.
|
| The ending of Consider Phlebas was a bit of a trainwreck in
| my opinion :)
| substation13 wrote:
| It's a fun action novel; I loved the part with the cult on the
| island. But yeah, it has nothing on Player of Games.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| This is a consistent complaint I have about that whole
| series. Banks clearly enjoys writing action sequences, and is
| very good at it, and they are a poor fit for the stories of
| the series. They're tonally out of place with the setting,
| throw off the pacing, and require extravagant plot
| contortions to allow for them.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Booo! Banks loves writing action sequences and some of us
| love to read them. If you want to read "brainy" sci-fi you
| can always someone else like, like... Olaf Stapledon? Or
| Alfred Bester?
|
| But the Culutre has drones armed with knife missiles armed
| with micromissiles armed with miniature jedi ninjas with
| chainswords shooting death rays from their eyes. So there.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Consider Phlebas was my third Culture novel after Use of
| Weapons and Player of Games. I very much enjoyed it, but
| definitely didn't enjoy the Island cult bit!
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Its a acquired taste.. it was a fascinating insight though,
| into a luxurious, post-scarcity societies tolerance for
| extremes, as long as they all did what they did out of
| choice, not even a machine could overrule them.
|
| I love, how the tragic choices of the "organics" are
| mirrored hinted as part of the PTSD of the orbital in "Look
| to the winward", which can "relive" the destruction of
| orbitals, ships and worlds in the idiran war in perfect
| detail. It could have zapped the mindstates of the mortals,
| like the meat-fucker (Sleeper Service), but choose to not
| do so out of respect for the choices.
|
| The whole book part of the orbital, was a careful flashed
| out testing of the extremes of a highly hedonistic, machine
| governed society thrown in a "culture" war against
| religious zealots and it explored those themes well.
| buildbot wrote:
| Use of Weapons is typically what I recommend as the first
| book to read, it was mine, and it was mind blowing. The
| Chair...
| jamestimmins wrote:
| That's funny. I found the cult stuff so unnecessarily
| unpleasant (the phrase "torture p*rn" comes to mind) that I
| haven't read any of the other books.
| dsr_ wrote:
| There are books which are fully juiced on their first reading.
| All of Banks' novels have additional liquid to savor after
| several pressings.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| What a weird way to describe it, but it is true that his
| writing is something you stop to admire on its own from time
| to time.
| prewett wrote:
| I like your analogy, but I need help seeing how it applies to
| _Consider Phlebas_. From my perspective, the story is pretty
| arbitrary. The aliens have arbitrary features that have no
| internal reason for they must inevitably be that and not
| something else. Similarly for characters and plot points.
| There 's a ringworld, but with none of Niven's exploration
| into the nature of a ringworld. (Fair enough, just borrow
| from Niven, it just doesn't add any juice.) The gambling game
| and island cult are interesting, but both are deeply
| grotesque and kind of counter-examples of treating people
| well. The Culture seems like Progressivism plus American
| self-assured knowledge that their system of life is obviously
| the only right way to behave. (Not arrogance, which is
| putting down others, or cockiness which has naivite, but just
| the lack of introspection to even see other perspectives. It
| reminds me of the smart bombs the US talked about in the Iraq
| War, as if a "righteous" war with weapons that only killed
| hostiles and not innocents is morally acceptable. I'm
| somewhat sympathetic to that idea [assuming it were
| implementable], but I can also see how that is not terribly
| compatible with the idea of a peaceful nation promoting
| democracy, but the messaging did not seem to have any
| cognitive dissonance.) I do think managing to make the
| Culture feel like modern America, but two or three decades
| prior is pretty impressive, but I don't see what extra juice
| there is. There is no critique of the Culture as far as I can
| tell (or any justification, for that matter), it just IS and
| everyone else has to deal with it.
|
| I guess I just don't see where any extra juice is going to
| come from. _Canticle for Leibowitz_ has a beautiful
| meditation on human nature. _Diaspora_ shows several very
| non-arbitrary forms of life, discusses disobeying a person 's
| expressly stated values to save their life, and touches on
| the consequences of immortality and immortality alone. In
| comparison, I struggle to see how _Consider Phlebas_ is
| anything other than solid C-grade sci-fi.
| tblt wrote:
| As a massive fan of the Culture series, does anyone have
| recommendations for other excellent sci-fi books?
| davecanderson wrote:
| I just finished reading A Deepness in The Sky by Vernor Vinge
| which I totally enjoyed and as I read it reminded me of the
| scale and depth of Banks' Culture novels.
| exolymph wrote:
| Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts, The Windup Girl by
| Paolo Bacigalupi
| Symmetry wrote:
| Ok, for an Ian M Banks fan specifically.
|
| Alistair Reynolds has a number of good books which can capture
| some of the same darkness you'd find in part's of Banks's work.
| The Revelation Space books are great in their gothic way, and
| House of Suns has a lot of the galactic wonder aspects of the
| Culture books.
|
| Ken MacLeod as a friend of Bank's and a good writer. His Fall
| Revolution books are probably the best known and explore
| various radical leftish ideas for organizing society across the
| nearish future.
|
| And this last is a bit of an oddball but Leonard Richardson's
| Constellation Games was a book I really enjoyed that starts
| with aliens coming to Earth looking to help out and our
| protagonist, a video game reviewer, asking for alien games to
| review but ends up in a place that resonated with The Culture
| very strongly.
| goodlinks wrote:
| Sad i dont have more of his books signed. I did go to a signing,
| but the only books of his i had to hand were from the library..
| so i got them signed and didnt say anything when i returned them
| incase i was charged for damaging the book.
|
| He just chuckled and did the dedication to the library directly.
| lreeves wrote:
| I can't think of an author I miss more but 155CAD for a book with
| 6 illustrations seems crazy, especially when Banks isn't exactly
| making profit from this.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Wait 'till you see how much Centipede Press' recent copies of
| Dune and Dune Messiah are selling for.
|
| https://www.centipedepress.com/sf/dune.html
| LesZedCB wrote:
| the binding and paper quality is very high. but it's solidly a
| splurge buy.
| a4isms wrote:
| You can buy a print of a single image from Susan Kare's
| original Macintosh iconography for USD 160, and it doesn't come
| with any words! This edition gives you five more prints and a
| whole book.
|
| I think it really is a matter of this being a "collectible," or
| "personal treasure" rather than some kind of exercise in market
| economics. If the six illustrations speak to you and the
| presentation speaks to you and $155 is affordable for you,
| great. If not, no problemo, it's a niche product and you are
| not in the niche.
|
| The other thing you bring up--the author getting paid--is a
| different matter, and one that I take seriously as well.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Yes, but you'd be incentivizing Banks' successors in interest
| to create more content in The Culture universe. Can't be bad!
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| I like reading and I own probably too many books, but I don't
| understand the Folio society. If you want art then go by art,
| if you want a book then get a paperback. These aren't coffee
| table books. It's just words.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| a well bound hardback will be more comfortable to read, even
| compared to a properly broken in paperback spine
| yamtaddle wrote:
| There's something to be said for presentation. Preaching's
| preaching, but a stone cathedral sure feels different than a
| strip-mall church.
| a4isms wrote:
| People act like books are just words to read, but the fact
| is that handling a well-made artefact of any kind
| stimulates different neural pathways into your brain than
| just looking at it.
|
| Books can have heft. They can be pleasing to touch. The
| feel of each page as you turn it is part of the book's user
| experience, and different choices of paper, binding, and
| finish all affect that.
|
| Reading a physical book generates more "input" to your
| brain, and if you're going to go to the trouble, it can be
| stimulating and pleasurable to pick a book that adds
| physical joy to the experience of reading.
| nineplay wrote:
| I "collect" books in that I sometimes buy physical copies of
| books when I only read e-books, but when I purchase something
| it's usually because I've found an paperback in a used
| bookstore and can't resist the fantastic cover art and old
| book smell.
|
| Whatever one may think looking at my overflowing bookshelves,
| a new pretty print edition doesn't do much for me.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| They make nice gifts, like an even more expensive version of
| the penguin cloth bound classics:
|
| https://www.penguin.co.uk/series/CLOTBO/penguin-
| clothbound-c...
| allturtles wrote:
| I'd actually really recommend against the Penguin
| clothbound classics. Unless they changed something
| recently, the designs on the cover wear off very easily
| from the sweat/oil on your hands and you end up with an
| ugly book after one reading.
|
| If you want less expensive high-quality classic books I'd
| recommend Library of America (for American authors), Modern
| Library, or Everyman's Library.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| LOA's great if you don't mind bible-type thin paper and
| smallish type. Wonderful for saving space on a bookshelf,
| solid binding. I often wish they did British authors,
| too. Modern Library and Everyman are excellent mid-range
| readers' hardbacks, not fancy but solid and reliable,
| often (though not always) exhibiting excellent taste in
| selection of translations and introductions and other
| extras. Penguin Classics paperbacks are my go-to if I'm
| not shooting for a hardcover (though they recently and
| inexplicably changed what had been maybe the single best
| cover design in all of publishing to make it worse, which
| is irritating--at least it's still not as bad as the old
| yellow-cover design they used years back, god those were
| ugly).
|
| The French version of LOA is La Pleiade. Similar deal,
| smallish print, thin paper, focus on classics and
| important works.
|
| There are several mostly-kinda-shitty "fancy" series
| (Folio's not one of them) often in fake leather binding,
| but among the "fancy" sorts, one that really delivers is
| the (defunct) Limited Editions Club (LEC to book nerds).
| The name's awful, but if you want an edition you could
| put on a lectern in the library of a 15th century French
| chateau and have it look like it belongs, short of
| springing for real-leather binding, they're a good
| candidate. HUGE--seriously, _big_ --often bound in heavy-
| duty cloth, well-selected illustrations, thick, nice
| paper. Not a lot of other extras, though. But if you want
| a book to feel like Serious Business, they're a good
| choice. Heritage Press is (well, was) the "budget"
| version of them, reprinting LEC in usually somewhat
| scaled down (though still large) and less crazy-good (but
| still good) binding. Much friendlier to normal shelf
| heights, and easier on the wallet.
|
| About the only paperback publisher I have an opinion on,
| other than Penguin Classics, is Dover. If you're going
| budget, might as well go all the way. Plus, hell, half
| the time I prefer theirs to slightly-more-expensive
| offerings. Love 'em.
| lxe wrote:
| Consider Phlebas is probably my favorite Culture book. Arguably
| not the best intro to the Culture universe, but as a standalone
| space opera it's hard to put down.
| jimjimjim wrote:
| Consider Phelbas is good but as the first culture book it would
| have been the introduction of the culture/ship ai ideas for
| people which would have made a big impact.
|
| unfortunately I read it after going through a lot of Iain Banks'
| books such as The State of the Art, The Crow Road, The Bridge and
| Feersum Endjinn, and found it to be just ok.
| tmoertel wrote:
| "Set in Garamond with Scene as display"
|
| Does anyone know _which_ Garamond?
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(page generated 2023-03-21 23:02 UTC)