Read Series: Culture
by Author Iain M. Banks
Matter (2008)
This is my first experience with Ian Banks' famed "Culture" setting, whose books don't function the way a normal book series does, but rather, as simply a shared setting that many of his books take place in. Order is not important, as I understand it, as the universe he creates is so vast that a ...
Inversions (2001)
Banks' Culture series so far has been, what I will refer to as, hard sci-fi. Gargantuan megaships which house billions of people, immensely advanced Artificial Intelligences independently managing entire worlds, tiny drones with the ability to kill several people in a matter of seconds, Orbitals ...
Look to Windward (2002)
Look to windward I think is book in which Banks goes back to what he does best i.e. tell a engrossing story which has a lot of twists and turns. This time the story exclusively takes place on Masaq orbital and the descriptions of the orbital is another point which made this book really fascinatin...
Excession (1998)
The 5th book in the culture series Excession is by far the most confusing book I have read so far.I think this book could have been split into two parts instead of compressing all the different plot lines in a single part.Although the book has a decent story but Banks starts a new plot in a middl...
The Player of Games (1997)
My experience with Iain M. Banks has been lukewarm. I liked but didn't love the first book in this series, Consider Phlebas, and I absolutely hated The Algebraist. I read The Player of Games because I am an artificial intelligence, post-scarcity junkie, and Banks is the kind of author who serves ...
The State of the Art (2007)
This collection of stories is a small but significant contribution to Iain M. Banks’ inimitable Culture Series. I didn’t have much of a reaction one way or another to the smattering of Culture-based short stories, so this review will focus entirely on the book’s eponymous novella. “The State of t...
Use of Weapons (1992)
PrologueStars were barely visible through the tiny oval. The reader looked up from his novel, blinked. Checked his watch -- still hours to go. His wife sat slumped next to him, still asleep. Some people could sleep on planes. Some people couldn't."What are you reading?" asked the man on the reade...
Surface Detail (2010)
Wow! This has taken me 23 hours of listening. It's a massive book, spanning the galaxy. The premise is that (1) The Culture is the most civilised of the advanced civilisations and generally gets what it wants done, (2) there is a series of "virtual hells" in which souls are tormented, but as t...
Consider Phlebas (1987)
Ehhhhhh.I really expected to like this more than I did, and at times I did find myself enjoying it. I liked several of the characters quite a bit, but others never felt fully formed or even interesting. I think I mainly just found it...tedious, a lot of the time. Too much filler. And this is mayb...