Feersum Endjinn is well worth sticking with. I admit it took me five years of starting, giving up, starting again to actually get into it, but once I did, it was a very rewarding read.
Iain M Banks The Culture
- Thread starter Bob The Skutter
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Well, I've read about a third since I bought it about two years ago, so here's hoping I equal your record
But that's just what readers have speculated, right? Banks has never actually come out and said as much? Because I really don't think that's the only possible interpretation. Maybe there were some similar ideas involved in both universes, but that doesn't absolutely prove that this was the origin he intended for the Culture.
I came across The Culture via a Doctor Who New Adventures novel called The Also People. The author never actually denied that he had been "inspired" by Banks' works: "Talent borrows, genius steals, and New Adventures writers get it off the back of a lorry, no questions asked." 
I read Matter first, and came away both intrigued and confused. I'm looking for other books in the series.
I read Matter first, and came away both intrigued and confused. I'm looking for other books in the series.
I came across The Culture via a Doctor Who New Adventures novel called The Also People. The author never actually denied that he had been "inspired" by Banks' works: "Talent borrows, genius steals, and New Adventures writers get it off the back of a lorry, no questions asked."
I read Matter first, and came away both intrigued and confused. I'm looking for other books in the series.
I mentioned The Also People to Iain at a publishers' party in the late 1990s, and he was flattered and amused, but hadn't read it (I later got a spare copy of it to send to him, but I think I never got round to sending it - which means it's still in my attic somewhere).
On the 'Which ones are Culture novels?' then it's a case where it's better not to play 'canon':
As mentioned, Against a Dark Background could easily occur in the Culture universe without any Culture involvement in this isolated planet.
Inversions is similar, but has one passing line that makes it clear that the Culture is, very quietly, involved.
But equally... as present day Earth exists in Culture continuity (State of the Art), then in theory all of Iain (No Initial) Banks' books are also in the same continuity. Which is sort of confirmed by the mention of a knife missile in The Bridge (but that was a case of him using an idea from his as-yet-unpublished SF novel in his third mainstream novel)
Anyway, recommendations:
Consider Phlebas: Not one of the best (I was lukewarm in 1987), because it tries to show you too much and that gets in the way of the actual story and characters. But by showing you that much it gives you a big understanding of the Culture that lets later books concentrate on what matters to that story.
Player of Games: Excellent intro book which (like many others) shows you the Culture through the non-Culture planet into which one Culture person has been sent.
Use of Weapons: Don't read first, as it works better if you know the Culture background. If you do, the dual chapter structure leading up to one of the most macabre endings in SF is breathtaking. But probably almost as good anyway.
Leave until you're being completist: State of the Art. The Culture observes 1970s Earth, and Iain Banks rants out all his teenage marxism (and I say that as a very left wing Brit!)
I agree, it threw me when I got to the short story collection and found the Culture visiting a contemporary Earth. I had thought of the Culture's humans as us in the future (subtly altered of course).
There's nothing to stop you continuing to believe this and considering State of the Art as an conjectural side-story! I do!
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Could you point me in the direction of such analysis?
There's nothing to stop you continuing to believe this and considering State of the Art as an conjectural side-story! I do!
Nothing will stop me from doing so
If I can get through the mountain of second hand books I picked up over the past two years but didn't bother reading (or if I just get sick of them and pulp them) I'll pick up the latest Culture book.
You could start with this essay, actually...
"A Few Notes About the Culture": http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/2b05e32641fee4c2?hl=en&pli=1
I haven't read "Matter" - but I do like the Culture centric books like "The Player of Games" and such..."Player" was *brilliant*!
Interesting how the Culture and the Federation are both similar in many ways - and exact opposites in others...
Like the Federation has the "Prime Directive" - they made non-interference their highest law.
But the Culture - especially the "Special Circumstances" branch of Contact - *live* to interfere in backwards and non-egalitarian societies - to make them more like the Culture in their values.
Though...this has backfired on the Culture a few times...in catastrophic ways, such as the Culture-Idrian War...
Like the Federation has the "Prime Directive" - they made non-interference their highest law.
But the Culture - especially the "Special Circumstances" branch of Contact - *live* to interfere in backwards and non-egalitarian societies - to make them more like the Culture in their values.
Though...this has backfired on the Culture a few times...in catastrophic ways, such as the Culture-Idrian War...
The Culture = Eudaimonic Cyberethical Communism
I would recommend reading "Excession" last -- I found it the hardest of the Culture novels to appreciate.
I would recommend reading "Excession" last -- I found it the hardest of the Culture novels to appreciate.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
There's nothing to stop you continuing to believe this and considering State of the Art as an conjectural side-story! I do!
Nothing will stop me from doing so
If I can get through the mountain of second hand books I picked up over the past two years but didn't bother reading (or if I just get sick of them and pulp them) I'll pick up the latest Culture book.
You might want to consider parts of Excession conjectural too, then, Squire of Gothos - they also deal with the Culture's origin story, making it completely alien from Earth (essentially, ~6 alien humanoid species united in what was to become the Culture).
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