The culture books
https://www.goodreads.com/series/49118-culture
Culture Series
2023-01-01
Iain M Banks
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<div><div><h2>Culture Series</h2></div><div>10 primary works • 19 total works</div><div>These works of novels and short fiction center around the Culture, a post-scarcity semi-anarchist utopia consisting of humanoid races and managed by super-intelligent artificial intelligences. They do not need to be read in order. While there are some interconnections, they are minor. <p>Series also known as:<br /><i>* Ciclo della Cultura [Italian]</i></p></div></div>
<div>
<div><div><h3>Book 1</h3><div><div>The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Consider Phlebas</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 2</h3><div><div>The Culture - a humanoid/machine symbiotic society…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve The Player of Games</h3></div></div></div></div></div>
<div><div><h3>Book 3</h3><div><div>The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Sp…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Use of Weapons</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 4</h3><div><div>The first ever collection of Iain Banks' short fic…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve The State of the Art</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 5</h3><div><div>The international sensation Iain M. Banks offers r…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Excession</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 6</h3><div><div>On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy r…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Inversions</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 7</h3><div><div>The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of …</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Look to Windward</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 8</h3><div><div>In a world renowned within a galaxy full of wonder…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Matter</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 9</h3><div><div>It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter s…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Surface Detail</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 10</h3><div><div>The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, …</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve The Hydrogen Sonata</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 1-3</h3><div><div>Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the first three …</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve The Culture: Consider Phlebas/Player of Games/Use of Weapons</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 2-3</h3><div><div>Zwei Kultur-Romane in einem Band<p>Iain Banks, der Be…</p></div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Das Kultur-Spiel: Das Spiel Azad / Einsatz der Waffen</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 3-4</h3><div><div>Классический (и, по мнению многих, лучший) роман и…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Выбор оружия. Последнее слово техники</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 1-8</h3><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve La Saga de la Cultura</h3></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 1-4</h3><div><div>Contiene: Pensad en flebas, Eljugador, Última gene…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve La Saga de la Cultura - 1</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 5-8</h3><div><div>Contiene: Excesión, Inversiones, A Barlovento y Ma…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve La Saga de la Cultura - 2</h3></div></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 9, 1 / 2</h3><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Les Enfers virtuels 1</h3></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 9, 2 / 2</h3><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Les Enfers virtuels 2</h3></div></div></div><div><h3>Book 1-3</h3><div><div>La Cultura. Una società ideale che si è sviluppata…</div><div><a></a><div><h3>Shelve Il ciclo della cultura. Prima trilogia</h3></div></div></div></div></div>
</div>
</div>
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Culture Series

 10 primary works • 19 total works
 These works of novels and short fiction center around the Culture, a post-scarcity semi-anarchist utopia consisting of humanoid races and managed by super-intelligent artificial intelligences. They do not need to be read in order. While there are some interconnections, they are minor.

 Series also known as:
 * Ciclo della Cultura [Italian]

 Book 1

 Consider Phlebas
 by Iain M. Banks
 3.86 · 85095 Ratings · 4533 Reviews · published 1987 · 71 editions
 The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died… More
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 Book 2

 The Player of Games
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.28 · 67611 Ratings · 3041 Reviews · published 1988 · 62 editions
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 Book 3

 Use of Weapons
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.17 · 44733 Ratings · 2076 Reviews · published 1990 · 54 editions
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 Book 4

 The State of the Art
 by Iain M. Banks
 3.84 · 16251 Ratings · 700 Reviews · published 1991 · 30 editions
 The first ever collection of Iain Banks' short fic… More
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 Book 5

 Excession
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.20 · 28945 Ratings · 1250 Reviews · published 1996 · 29 editions
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 Book 6

 Inversions
 by Iain M. Banks
 3.93 · 17062 Ratings · 678 Reviews · published 1998 · 29 editions
 On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy r… More
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 Book 7

 Look to Windward
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.21 · 25503 Ratings · 812 Reviews · published 2000 · 42 editions
 The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of … More
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 Book 8

 Matter
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.09 · 26274 Ratings · 1074 Reviews · published 2008 · 3 editions
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 Book 9

 Surface Detail
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.25 · 26573 Ratings · 1143 Reviews · published 2010 · 29 editions
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 Book 10

 The Hydrogen Sonata
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.19 · 22205 Ratings · 1348 Reviews · published 2012 · 29 editions
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 Book 1-3

 The Culture: Consider Phlebas/Player of Games/Use of Weapons
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.52 · 465 Ratings · 12 Reviews · published 2012 · 2 editions
 Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the first three … More
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 Book 2-3

 Das Kultur-Spiel: Das Spiel Azad / Einsatz der Waffen
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.39 · 33 Ratings · 2 Reviews · published 2004 · 3 editions
 Zwei Kultur-Romane in einem Band

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 Book 3-4

 Выбор оружия. Последнее слово техники
 by Iain M. Banks
 3.50 · 14 Ratings · 7 Reviews · published 1989 · 3 editions
 Классический (и, по мнению многих, лучший) роман и… More
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 Book 1-8

 La Saga de la Cultura
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.43 · 7 Ratings · 1 Reviews · published 2014 · 1 edition
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 Book 1-4

 La Saga de la Cultura - 1
 by Iain M. Banks
 5.00 · 2 Ratings · 1 edition
 Contiene: Pensad en flebas, Eljugador, Última gene… More
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 Book 5-8

 La Saga de la Cultura - 2
 by Iain M. Banks
 0.00 · 1 edition
 Contiene: Excesión, Inversiones, A Barlovento y Ma… More
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 Book 9, 1 / 2

 Les Enfers virtuels 1
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.31 · 13 Ratings · published 2010 · 2 editions
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 Book 9, 2 / 2

 Les Enfers virtuels 2
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.08 · 12 Ratings · published 2010 · 2 editions
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 Book 1-3

 Il ciclo della cultura. Prima trilogia
 by Iain M. Banks
 4.00 · 10 Ratings · 3 editions
 La Cultura. Una società ideale che si è sviluppata… More
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  Culture Series  10 primary works • 19 total works These works of novels and short fiction center around the Culture, a post-scarcity semi-anarchist utopia consisting of humanoid races and managed by super-intelligent artificial intelligences. They do not need to be read in order. While there are some interconnections, they are minor. Series also known as: * Ciclo della Cultura [Italian]   
  Book 1  The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died…     Shelve Consider Phlebas      Book 2  The Culture - a humanoid/machine symbiotic society…     Shelve The Player of Games     
  Book 3  The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Sp…     Shelve Use of Weapons      Book 4  The first ever collection of Iain Banks' short fic…     Shelve The State of the Art      Book 5  The international sensation Iain M. Banks offers r…     Shelve Excession      Book 6  On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy r…     Shelve Inversions      Book 7  The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of …     Shelve Look to Windward      Book 8  In a world renowned within a galaxy full of wonder…     Shelve Matter      Book 9  It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter s…     Shelve Surface Detail      Book 10  The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, …     Shelve The Hydrogen Sonata      Book 1-3  Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the first three …     Shelve The Culture: Consider Phlebas/Player of Games/Use of Weapons      Book 2-3  Zwei Kultur-Romane in einem BandIain Banks, der Be…      Shelve Das Kultur-Spiel: Das Spiel Azad / Einsatz der Waffen      Book 3-4  Классический (и, по мнению многих, лучший) роман и…     Shelve Выбор оружия. Последнее слово техники      Book 1-8     Shelve La Saga de la Cultura     Book 1-4  Contiene: Pensad en flebas, Eljugador, Última gene…     Shelve La Saga de la Cultura - 1      Book 5-8  Contiene: Excesión, Inversiones, A Barlovento y Ma…     Shelve La Saga de la Cultura - 2      Book 9, 1 / 2     Shelve Les Enfers virtuels 1     Book 9, 2 / 2     Shelve Les Enfers virtuels 2     Book 1-3  La Cultura. Una società ideale che si è sviluppata…     Shelve Il ciclo della cultura. Prima trilogia
Culture Series
https://www.goodreads.com/series/49118-culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series
Culture series - Wikipedia
2009-02-15
None
<div><div>
<table><caption><b><i>Culture</i> series</b></caption><tbody><tr><td><div>
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Consider_Phlebas">Consider Phlebas</a></i> (1987)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/The_Player_of_Games">The Player of Games</a></i> (1988)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Use_of_Weapons">Use of Weapons</a></i> (1990)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art">The State of the Art</a></i> (1989)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Excession">Excession</a></i> (1996)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Inversions_(novel)">Inversions</a></i> (1998)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Look_to_Windward">Look to Windward</a></i> (2000)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Matter_(novel)">Matter</a></i> (2008)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Surface_Detail_(novel)">Surface Detail</a></i> (2010)</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/The_Hydrogen_Sonata">The Hydrogen Sonata</a></i> (2012)</li></ul>
</div><hr /></td></tr><tr><th>Author</th><td><a href="/wiki/Iain_M._Banks">Iain M. Banks</a></td></tr><tr><th>Country</th><td>United Kingdom</td></tr><tr><th>Language</th><td>English</td></tr><tr><th>Genre</th><td>Science Fiction</td></tr><tr><th>Publisher</th><td>Orbit</td></tr><tr><th>Published</th><td>1987 – 2012</td></tr><tr><th>Media type</th><td>Print / Digital</td></tr><tr><th>No. of books</th><td>10</td></tr><tr><th>Website</th><td><a href="https://www.iain-banks.net/">https://www.iain-banks.net</a></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>The <b><i>Culture</i> series</b> is a <a href="/wiki/Science_fiction">science fiction</a> <a href="/wiki/Book_series">series</a> written by <a href="/wiki/Scottish_people">Scottish</a> author <a href="/wiki/Iain_Banks">Iain M. Banks</a> and released from 1987 through to 2012. The stories centre on <a href="/wiki/The_Culture">The Culture</a>, a <a href="/wiki/Utopia">utopian</a>, <a href="/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy">post-scarcity</a> space society of <a href="/wiki/Humanoid">humanoid</a> <a href="/wiki/Extraterrestrial_life">aliens</a>, and advanced <a href="/wiki/Superintelligence">superintelligent</a> <a href="/wiki/Artificial_intelligence">artificial intelligences</a> living in <a href="/wiki/Space_habitat">artificial habitats</a> spread across the <a href="/wiki/Milky_Way">Milky Way</a> galaxy. The main themes of the series are the dilemmas that an idealistic, more-advanced civilization faces in dealing with smaller, less-advanced civilizations that do not share its ideals, and whose behaviour it sometimes finds barbaric. In some of the stories action takes place mainly in non-Culture environments, and the leading characters are often on the fringes of (or non-members of) the Culture, sometimes acting as agents of Culture (knowing and unknowing) in its plans to civilize the galaxy. Each novel is a self-contained story with new characters, although reference is occasionally made to the events of previous novels.
</p>
<h2>The Culture[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=1">edit</a>]</h2>
<p>The Culture is a society formed by various <a href="/wiki/Humanoid">humanoid</a> species and <a href="/wiki/Artificial_intelligence">artificial intelligences</a> about 9,000 years before the events of novels in the series. Since the majority of its biological population can have almost anything they want without the need to work, there is little need for <a href="/wiki/Laws">laws</a> or <a href="/wiki/Law_enforcement">enforcement</a>, and the culture is described by Banks as space <a href="/wiki/Socialism">socialism</a>.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1994-1">[1]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBrown1996-2">[2]</a></sup> It features a <a href="/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy">post-scarcity economy</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-3">[a]</a></sup> where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1994-1">[1]</a></sup> Its members live mainly in spaceships and other off-planet constructs, because its founders wished to avoid the centralised political and corporate power-structures that planet-based economies foster.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1994-1">[1]</a></sup> Most of the planning and administration is done by <a href="/wiki/Mind_(The_Culture)">Minds</a>, very advanced AIs.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEJohnson1998-4">[3]</a></sup>
</p><p>Although the Culture has more advanced technology and a more powerful economy than the vast majority of known civilizations, it is only one of the "Involved" civilizations that take an active part in galactic affairs. The much older Homomda are slightly more advanced at the time of <i>Consider Phlebas</i> (this is, however, set several centuries before the other books, and Culture technology and martial power continue to advance in the interim);<sup><a href="#cite_note-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar-5">[b]</a></sup> the Morthanveld have a much larger population and economy, but are hampered by a more restrictive attitude to the role of AI in their society.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks2008-6">[4]</a></sup> The capabilities of all such societies are vastly exceeded by those of the Elder civilisations (semi-retired from Galactic politics but who remain supremely potent) and even more so by those of the Sublimed, entities which have abandoned their material form for existence in the form of non-corporeal, multi-dimensional <a href="/wiki/Energy_being">energy being</a>. The Sublimed generally refrain from intervention in the material world.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEJacksonHeilman2008-7">[5]</a></sup>
</p><p>Some other civilizations hold less favourable views of the Culture.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup> At the time of their war with the Culture, the Idirans and some of their allies regarded the control that the Minds exercised over the Culture as a form of <a href="/wiki/Idolatry">idolatry</a>.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBrown1996-2">[2]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1987-9">[7]</a></sup> The Homomda regard the Culture as idealistic and hyper-active.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks2000-10">[8]</a></sup> Some members of the Culture have seceded to form related civilizations, known collectively as the Ulterior. These include the Peace Faction, the AhForgetIt Tendency and the <a href="/wiki/The_Culture#Biological">Zetetic Elench</a>. Others simply drop out temporarily or permanently.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1996-11">[9]</a></sup>
</p>
<h2>Books in the series[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=2">edit</a>]</h2>
<p>The Culture series comprises nine novels and one short story collection. The list, ordered by date of publishing, is:
</p>
<table>
<tbody><tr>
<th>Title</th>
<th>First published</th>
<th>Date in which set</th>
<th>ISBN
</th></tr><tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/Consider_Phlebas">Consider Phlebas</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1987-9">[7]</a></sup></i></th><td>1987</td><td>1331 <a href="/wiki/Common_Era">CE</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar-5">[b]</a></sup></td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-138-4">1-85723-138-4</a></td></tr><tr><td>
An episode in a full-scale war between the Culture and the Idirans, told mainly from the point of view of an operative of the Idiran Empire.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/The_Player_of_Games">The Player of Games</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1988-12">[10]</a></sup></i></th><td>1988</td><td>2083 to 2087/8 CE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-13">[c]</a></sup></td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-146-5">1-85723-146-5</a></td></tr><tr><td>
A bored member of the Culture is blackmailed into being the Culture's agent in a plan to subvert a brutal, hierarchical empire. His mission is to win an empire-wide tournament by which the ruler of the empire is selected.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/Use_of_Weapons">Use of Weapons</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1988-12">[10]</a></sup></i></th><td>1990</td><td>2092 CE<sup><a href="#cite_note-14">[d]</a></sup> in the main narrative stream. 1892 CE<sup><a href="#cite_note-15">[e]</a></sup> at the start of the secondary narrative stream.</td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-135-X">1-85723-135-X</a></td></tr><tr><td>
Chapters describing the current mission of a Culture special agent born and raised on a non-Culture planet alternate with chapters that describe in reverse chronological order earlier missions and the traumatic events that made him who he is.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorton1997-16">[11]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art">The State of the Art</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1991-17">[12]</a></sup></i></th><td>1991</td><td>Various (title story takes place in 1977 CE)</td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-356-19669-0">0-356-19669-0</a></td></tr><tr><td>
A <a href="/wiki/Short_story_collection">short story collection</a>. Two of the works are explicitly set in the Culture universe ("The State of the Art" and "<a href="/wiki/A_Gift_from_the_Culture">A Gift from the Culture</a>"), with a third work ("Descendant") possibly set in the Culture universe. In the title <a href="/wiki/Novella">novella</a>, the <a href="/wiki/Mind_(The_Culture)">Mind</a> in charge of an expedition to Earth decides not to make contact or intervene in any way, but instead to use Earth as a <a href="/wiki/Control_group">control group</a> in the Culture's long-term comparison of intervention and non-interference.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEJacksonHeilman2008-7">[5]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/Excession">Excession</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1996-11">[9]</a></sup></i></th><td>1996</td><td>1867 CE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-18">[f]</a></sup> in main setting. 1827 CE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-19">[g]</a></sup> and 633 BCE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-20">[h]</a></sup> in flashbacks.</td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-394-8">1-85723-394-8</a></td></tr><tr><td>
An alien artifact far advanced beyond the Culture's understanding is used by one group of <a href="/wiki/Mind_(The_Culture)">Minds</a> to lure a civilisation (the behaviour of which they disapprove) into war; another group of Minds works against the conspiracy. A sub-plot covers how two humanoids make up their differences after traumatic events that happened 40 years earlier.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1996-11">[9]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/Inversions_(novel)">Inversions</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1998-21">[13]</a></sup></i></th><td>1998</td><td>Unspecified</td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-763-3">1-85723-763-3</a></td></tr><tr><td>
Not explicitly a Culture novel, but recounts what appear to be the activities of a Special Circumstances agent and a Culture emigrant on a planet whose development is roughly equivalent to that of medieval Europe. The interwoven stories are told from the viewpoint of several of the locals.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTELangford1998-22">[14]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/Look_to_Windward">Look to Windward</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks2000-10">[8]</a></sup></i></th><td>2000</td><td>2167 CE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-23">[i]</a></sup></td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-969-5">1-85723-969-5</a></td></tr><tr><td>
The Culture has interfered in the development of a race known as the Chelgrians, with disastrous consequences. Now, in the light of a star that was destroyed 800 years previously during the Idiran War, plans for revenge are being hatched.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/Matter_(novel)">Matter</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks2008-6">[4]</a></sup></i></th><td>2008</td><td>1887 CE (approximate) or 2167 CE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-24">[j]</a></sup></td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-84149-417-8">1-84149-417-8</a></td></tr><tr><td>
A Culture special agent who is a princess of an early-industrial society on a huge artificial planet learns that her father and brother have been killed and decides to return to her homeworld.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEJohnson2008-25">[15]</a></sup> When she returns, she finds a far deeper threat.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks2008-6">[4]</a></sup></td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/Surface_Detail_(novel)">Surface Detail</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks2010-26">[16]</a></sup></i></th><td>2010</td><td>Some time between 2767<sup><a href="#cite_note-27">[k]</a></sup> and 2967 CE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-28">[l]</a></sup></td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-84149-893-9">1-84149-893-9</a></td></tr><tr><td>
A young woman seeks revenge on her murderer after being brought back to life by Culture technology. Meanwhile, a war over the digitized souls of the dead is expanding from cyberspace into the real world.</td></tr>
<tr><th><i><a href="/wiki/The_Hydrogen_Sonata">The Hydrogen Sonata</a><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks2012-29">[17]</a></sup></i></th><td>2012</td><td>2375 CE (approximate)<sup><a href="#cite_note-30">[m]</a></sup></td><td><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0356501505">978-0356501505</a></td></tr><tr><td>
In the last days of the Gzilt civilisation, which is about to Sublime, a secret from far back in their history threatens to unravel their plans. Aided by a number of Culture vessels and their avatars, one of the Gzilt tries to discover if much of their history was actually a lie.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>Main themes[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=3">edit</a>]</h2>
<p>Since the Culture's biological population commonly live as long as 400 years<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEJohnson1998-4">[3]</a></sup> and have no need to work, they face the difficulty of giving meaning to their lives when the <a href="/wiki/Mind_(The_Culture)">Minds</a> and other intelligent machines can do almost anything better than the biological population can.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShoul2001-31">[18]</a></sup> Many try—few successfully—to join <a href="/wiki/Contact_(The_Culture)">Contact</a>, the Culture's combined <a href="/wiki/Diplomacy">diplomatic</a> / <a href="/wiki/Military">military</a> / <a href="/wiki/Governmental">government</a> service, and fewer still are invited to the even more elite Special Circumstances (SC), Contact's <a href="/wiki/Secret_service">secret service</a> and <a href="/wiki/Special_operations">special operations</a> division.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1996-11">[9]</a></sup> Normal Culture citizens vicariously derive meaning from their existence via the works of Contact and SC. Banks described the Culture as "some incredibly rich lady of leisure who does good, charitable works... Contact does that on a large scale."<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTERichmond_Review1996-32">[19]</a></sup> The same need to find a purpose for existence contributed to the majority of the Culture embarking semi-voluntarily on its only recent full-scale war, to stop the expansion of the <a href="/wiki/Militaristic">militaristic</a> and <a href="/wiki/Expansionist">expansionist</a> Idirans—otherwise the Culture's economic and technological advancement would only have been an exercise in <a href="/wiki/Hedonism">hedonism</a>.<sup><a href="#cite_note-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar-5">[b]</a></sup>
</p><p>All of the stories feature the tension between the Culture's humane, <a href="/wiki/Anarcho-communist">anarcho-communist</a> ideals and its need to intervene in the affairs of less enlightened and often less advanced civilisations.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBrown1996-2">[2]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGevers2000-33">[20]</a></sup>The first Culture novel, <i><a href="/wiki/Consider_Phlebas">Consider Phlebas</a></i>, describes an episode in the Idiran War, which the Culture's Minds foresaw would cause billions of deaths on both sides, but which their <a href="/wiki/Utilitarian">utilitarian</a> calculations predicted would be the best course in the long term.<sup><a href="#cite_note-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar-5">[b]</a></sup> The Idiran War serves as a recurring reference point in most of the subsequent novels, influencing the Culture's development for centuries and dividing its residents—both humanoids and AI Minds—along the pacifist and interventionist ideals.
</p><p>In subsequent novels, the Culture—particularly SC and, to a lesser degree, Contact—continue to employ subterfuge, <a href="/wiki/Espionage">espionage</a>, and even <a href="/wiki/Direct_action_(military)">direct action</a> (collectively called "dirty tricks") in order to protect itself and spread the Culture's "good works" and ideals. These dirty tricks include blackmailing persons, employing mercenaries, recruiting <a href="/wiki/Double_agent">double agents</a>, attempting to effect <a href="/wiki/Regime_change">regime change</a>, and even engaging in <a href="/wiki/False_flag">false flag</a> operations against the Culture itself (potentially resulting in the death of billions).<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBrown1996-2">[2]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1996-11">[9]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBanks1988-12">[10]</a></sup> Though each of these individual actions would horrify the average Culture citizen, the Culture's Minds tend to justify these actions in terms of lives saved in the long-term, perhaps over the course of several hundred years. The Culture is willing to use not only preemptive, but also retaliatory actions in order to deter future hostile actions against itself. Banks commented that in order to prevent atrocities, "even the Culture throws away its usual moral rule-book."<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEThe_Guardian2000-34">[21]</a></sup> Andrew M. Butler noted that, "Having established the peaceful, utopian, game-playing tendencies of the Culture, ... in later volumes the Culture’s dirty tricks are more exposed."<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEButler2003-35">[22]</a></sup>
</p><p>The Culture stories have been described as "eerily prescient".<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaker2003-36">[23]</a></sup> <i>Consider Phlebas</i> explicitly presents a <a href="/wiki/Clash_of_civilizations">clash of civilizations</a>,<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEDuggan2007-37">[24]</a></sup> although this phrase was used by <a href="/wiki/Samuel_P._Huntington">Samuel P. Huntington</a> and earlier authors.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEAjamiCohenHuntington2009-38">[25]</a></sup> This is highlighted by the novel's description of the Idirans' expansion as a "<a href="/wiki/Jihad">jihad</a>" and by its <a href="/wiki/Epigraph_(literature)">epigraphic</a> verse from the <a href="/wiki/Koran">Koran</a>, "Idolatry is worse than carnage".<sup><a href="#cite_note-39">[n]</a></sup> However, it was as much a "holy war" from the Culture's point of view.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEDuggan2007-37">[24]</a></sup> Throughout the series, Contact and Special Circumstances show themselves willing to intervene, sometimes forcefully, in other civilizations to make them more Culture-like.
</p><p>Much of <i>Look to Windward</i> is a commentary on the Idiran-Culture war, from a viewpoint 800 years later, mainly reflecting grief over both personal and large-scale losses and guilt over actions taken in the war. It combines these with similar reflections on the catastrophic miscarriage of the Culture's attempt to dissolve the Chelgrians' oppressive caste system. In neither case, however, does distress over the consequences of Culture policy lead its representatives to reject that policy. The book illustrates the limitations of power, and also points out that Minds and other AIs are as vulnerable as biological persons to grief, guilt and regrets.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEDuggan2007-37">[24]</a></sup>
</p>
<h2>Place within science fiction[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=4">edit</a>]</h2>
<p>According to critic Farah Mendelson, the Culture stories are <a href="/wiki/Space_opera">space opera</a>, with certain elements that are free from scientific realism, and Banks uses this freedom extravagantly in order to focus on the human and political aspects of his universe; he rejects the dystopian direction of present-day <a href="/wiki/Capitalism">capitalism</a>, which both cyberpunk and earlier space operas assume, in creating a post-scarcity society as the primary civilization of focus.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMendelsohn2005-40">[26]</a></sup> Space opera had peaked in the 1930s, but started to decline as magazine editors such as <a href="/wiki/John_W._Campbell">John W. Campbell</a> demanded more realistic approaches. By the 1960s many space operas were satires on earlier styles, such as <a href="/wiki/Harry_Harrison_(writer)">Harry Harrison</a>'s <a href="/wiki/Stainless_Steel_Rat">Stainless Steel Rat</a> and <a href="/wiki/Bill,_the_Galactic_Hero">Bill, the Galactic Hero</a> stories,<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEWestfahl2003-41">[27]</a></sup> while televised and film space operas such as <i><a href="/wiki/Star_Trek">Star Trek</a></i> and <i><a href="/wiki/Star_Wars">Star Wars</a></i> were thought to have dumbed down the subgenre.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHollinger1997-42">[28]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStockwell2009-43">[29]</a></sup> The Culture stories did much to revive space opera.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEJohnson1998-4">[3]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEButler2003-35">[22]</a></sup>
</p>
<h2>Literary techniques[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=5">edit</a>]</h2>
<p>Banks has been described as "an incorrigible player of games" with both style and structure – and with the reader.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHolt2007-44">[30]</a></sup> In both the Culture stories and his work outside science fiction, there are two sides to Banks, the "merry chatterer" who brings scenes to life and "the altogether less amiable character" who "engineers the often savage structure of his stories".<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESleight2008-45">[31]</a></sup> Banks uses a wide range of styles. <i><a href="/wiki/The_Player_of_Games">The Player of Games</a></i> opens in a leisurely manner as it presents the main character's sense of boredom and inertia,<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEAllberry2005-46">[32]</a></sup> and adopts for the main storyline a "spare, functional" style that contrasts with the "linguistic fireworks" of later stories.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHolt2007-44">[30]</a></sup> Sometimes the styles used in <i><a href="/wiki/Excession">Excession</a></i> relate to the function and focal character of the scene: slow-paced and detailed for Dajeil, who is still mourning over traumatic events that happened decades earlier; a parody of huntin', shootin', and fishin' country gentlemen, sometimes reminiscent of <a href="/wiki/P._G._Wodehouse">P. G. Wodehouse</a>, when describing the viewpoint of the Affront; the ship <i>Serious Callers Only</i>, afraid of becoming involved in the conflict between factions of <a href="/wiki/Mind_(The_Culture)">Minds</a>, speaks in cryptic verse, while the <i>Sleeper Service</i>, acting as a freelance detective, adopts a <a href="/wiki/Hardboiled">hardboiled</a> style. On the other hand, Banks often wrong-foots readers by using prosaic descriptions for the grandest scenery, self-deprecation and humour for the most heroic actions, and a poetic style in describing one of the Affront's killings.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMendelsohn2005-40">[26]</a></sup>
</p><p>He delights in building up expectations and then surprising the reader.<sup>[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation needed</a></i>]</sup> Even in <i>The Player of Games</i>, which has the simplest style and structure of the series, the last line of the epilogue reveals who was really pulling the strings all along.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHolt2007-44">[30]</a></sup> In all the Culture stories, Banks subverts many clichés of <a href="/wiki/Space_opera">space opera</a>. The Minds are not plotting to take over the universe, and no-one is following a grand plan.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMendelsohn2005-40">[26]</a></sup> The darkly comic double-act of Ferbin and Holse in <i><a href="/wiki/Matter_(novel)">Matter</a></i> is not something most writers would place in "the normally po-faced context of space opera".<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESleight2008-45">[31]</a></sup> Even the names of Culture spaceships are jokes – for example <i>Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill</i>, <i>Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall</i> (part of a <a href="/wiki/Running_gag">running gag</a> in the series<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEThe_Guardian2000-34">[21]</a></sup>) and <i>Liveware Problem</i> (see <a href="/wiki/Liveware">liveware</a>).<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEPoole2008-47">[33]</a></sup>
</p><p>Banks often uses "outsiders" as viewpoint characters,<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEVint200779–101-48">[34]</a></sup> and said that using an enemy of the Culture as the main character of <i>Consider Phlebas</i>, the first story in the series, enabled him to present a more rounded view of the Culture.<sup>[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation needed</a></i>]</sup> However, this character realises that his attempts to plan for anything that might conceivably happen on a mission are very similar to the way in which the Culture makes all its decisions, and by the end suspects he has chosen the wrong side.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup>
</p><p>The focal character of <i>The Player of Games</i> is bored with the lack of real challenges in his life,<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup> is blackmailed into becoming a Culture agent, admires the vibrancy of the Azad Empire but is then disgusted by its brutality,<sup>[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation needed</a></i>]</sup> and wins the final of the tournament by playing in a style that reflects the Culture's values.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup>
</p><p><i>Use of Weapons</i> features a non-Culture mercenary who accepts the benefits of association with the Culture, including immortality as the fee for his first assignment, and completes several dangerous missions as a Culture agent, but complains that he is kept in the dark about the aims of his missions and that in some of the wars he has fought maybe the Culture was backing both sides, with good reason.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002-8">[6]</a></sup>
</p><p><i>Look to Windward</i> uses three commentators on the Culture, a near-immortal Behemothaur, a member of the race plunged into civil war by a Culture intervention that went wrong, and the ambassador of a race at similar technological level to the Culture's.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGevers2000-33">[20]</a></sup>
</p><p>The action scenes of the Culture stories are comparable to those of blockbuster films.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEPalmer1999-49">[35]</a></sup> In an interview, Banks said he would like <i><a href="/wiki/Consider_Phlebas">Consider Phlebas</a></i> to be filmed "with a very, very, very big budget indeed" and would not mind if the story were given a <a href="/wiki/Happy_ending">happy ending</a>, provided the biggest action scenes were kept.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESFF_World1997-50">[36]</a></sup> On the other hand, <i>The Player of Games</i> relies mainly on the psychological tension of the games by which the ruler of the Azad Empire is selected.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEAllberry2005-46">[32]</a></sup>
</p><p>Banks is unspecific about many of the background details in the stories, such as the rules of the game that is the centrepiece of <i>The Player of Games</i>,<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEAllberry2005-46">[32]</a></sup> and cheerfully makes no attempt at scientific credibility.<sup><a href="#cite_note-51">[o]</a></sup>
</p>
<h2>Genesis of the series[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=6">edit</a>]</h2>
<p>Banks says he conceived the Culture in the 1960s, and that it is a combination of wish fulfilment and a reaction against the predominantly right-wing science fiction produced in the United States.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTELowe2008-52">[37]</a></sup> In his opinion, the Culture might be a "great place to live", with no exploitation of people or AIs, and whose people could create beings greater than themselves.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGevers2002-53">[38]</a></sup>
</p><p>Before his first published novel, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Wasp_Factory">The Wasp Factory</a></i> (1984; not science fiction), was accepted in 1983, Banks wrote five books that were rejected, of which three were science fiction.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMitchell1996-54">[39]</a></sup> In Banks' first draft of <i><a href="/wiki/Use_of_Weapons">Use of Weapons</a></i> in 1974, his third attempt at a novel, the Culture was just a backdrop intended to show that the mercenary agent was working for the "good guys" and was responsible for his own misdeeds. At the time he persuaded his friend <a href="/wiki/Ken_MacLeod">Ken MacLeod</a> to read it and MacLeod tried to suggest improvements, but the book had too much <a href="/wiki/Purple_prose">purple prose</a> and a very convoluted structure. In 1984, shortly after <i>The Wasp Factory</i> was published, MacLeod was asked to read <i>Use of Weapons</i> again, and said there was "a good novel in there struggling to get out", and suggested the interleaved forwards and backwards narratives that appeared in the published version in 1990. The novella <i><a href="/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art">The State of the Art</a></i>, which provides the title of the 1991 collection, dates from 1979, the first draft of <i><a href="/wiki/The_Player_of_Games">The Player of Games</a></i> from 1980 and that of <i><a href="/wiki/Consider_Phlebas">Consider Phlebas</a></i> from 1982.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEWilson1994-55">[40]</a></sup>
</p>
<h2>Reception[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=7">edit</a>]</h2>
<p><i><a href="/wiki/Inversions_(novel)">Inversions</a></i> won the 2004 Italia Science Fiction Award for the Best International Novel.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESilver2004-56">[41]</a></sup>
</p><p>The American edition of <i><a href="/wiki/Look_to_Windward">Look to Windward</a></i> was listed by the editors of <i>SF Site</i> as one of the "Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001" after the UK edition had missed out by just one place the previous year.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEWalsh2002-57">[42]</a></sup>
</p><p><i><a href="/wiki/Use_of_Weapons">Use of Weapons</a></i> was listed in <a href="/wiki/Damien_Broderick">Damien Broderick</a>'s book <i>Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985–2010</i>.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTENonstop_Press2012-58">[43]</a></sup>
</p><p>As a posthumous tribute to Iain Banks, aerospace manufacturer <a href="/wiki/SpaceX">SpaceX</a> named two of its <a href="/wiki/Autonomous_spaceport_drone_ship">autonomous spaceport drone ships</a> after sentient star ships <i>Just Read the Instructions</i> and <i>Of Course I Still Love You</i> which first appeared in the novel <i><a href="/wiki/The_Player_of_Games">The Player of Games</a>. A</i> third drone craft was named <i>A Shortfall of Gravitas,</i> inspired by the star ship <i>Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall</i> in <i><a href="/wiki/Look_to_Windward">Look to Windward</a></i>.<sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTECofield2016-59">[44]</a></sup><sup><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEArevalo2021-60">[45]</a></sup>
</p><p>A further tribute was paid by the <a href="/wiki/Victor_Vescovo#Five_Deeps_Expedition">Five Deeps Expedition</a> which named all of its craft after Culture ships and drones.<sup><a href="#cite_note-61">[46]</a></sup>
</p><p>On an episode of <a href="/wiki/Lex_Fridman">Lex Fridman</a>'s podcast released on April 29, 2022, the artist <a href="/wiki/Grimes">Grimes</a> said that <a href="/wiki/Surface_Detail">Surface Detail</a> of the Culture series is the greatest science fiction book ever written.<sup><a href="#cite_note-62">[47]</a></sup>
</p>
<h2>Notes[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=8">edit</a>]</h2>
<div><ol>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b> Banks: "It is my vision of what you do when you are in that post-scarcity society, you can completely indulge myself. The Culture has no unemployment problem, no one has to work, so all work is a form of play!" (<a href="#CITEREFParsons2010">Parsons 2010</a>) 
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar_5-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar_5-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar_5-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Banks1987ConsiderPhlebasIdiranWar_5-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a> Early in the book it is stated that the war has been going on for four years, while the historical appendix states that the war began in 1327 CE. (<a href="#CITEREFBanks1987">Banks 1987</a>, p. 467, A Short History of the Idiran War) 
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-13">^</a></b> The ship <i>Limiting Factor</i> was "constructed seven hundred and sixteen years earlier in the closing stages of the Idiran war, when the conflict in space was almost over".(<a href="#CITEREFBanks1988">Banks 1988</a>) The war in space ended in 1367. The events of the book take place over a period of four to five years from the time of this statement.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-14">^</a></b> the events of the book are almost simultaneous with Diziet Sma's writing an account of her visit to Earth in 1977. In her preface to this account in "The State of the Art", she dates the visit to 115 years earlier.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-15">^</a></b> At the end of the main narrative stream, Zakalwe says it has been two centuries since the battleship was taken.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-18">^</a></b> The Gray Area reflects that the Excession is the most dangerous thing to be seen in the galaxy since the worst days of Idiran war, which took place five centuries before.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-19">^</a></b> It's stated Dajeil has been pregnant for 40 years.<sup>[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation needed</a></i>]</sup> 
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-20">^</a></b> It's stated the GCU Problem Child found the black Dwarf star, and the first Excession, 2500 years before the events of the main plot.<sup>[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation needed</a></i>]</sup> 
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-23">^</a></b> The book says it occurs about 800 years after events near the end of the fighting in space in the Idiran War.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-24">^</a></b> The book refers to the <i>Sleeper Service</i> incident in <i>Excession</i> as occurring 20 years previously; however, it also says that the <i>Liveware Problem</i> has been wandering for 800 years, having begun at the end of its service in the Idiran War.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-27">^</a></b> The book states that the events of <i>Look to Windward</i> occurred about 600 years earlier ("However, as part of what were in effect war reparations after the Chel debacle, six hundred years ago..."), and repeatedly refers to the Idiran war as occurring about 1500 years earlier; the war formally ended in 1375.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-28">^</a></b> Banks in an interview stated, "This one takes place about eight hundred years later on in the chronology of the culture"; at the time he was speaking the latest book in the culture chronology was set around 2167 (<a href="#CITEREFParsons2010">Parsons 2010</a>) 
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-30">^</a></b> The book states that the Interesting Times Gang from <i>Excession</i> has not been seen in almost 500 years; also, that it is about 1000 years after the Idiran war.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-39">^</a></b> "Idolatry is worse than carnage" is presented as a translation of "The Koran, 2: 190"; but is actually a misplaced reference to <a href="/wiki/Quran">Quran</a> <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2002.02.0006%3Asura%3D2%3Averse%3D217">2:217</a>, even then, modern scholars regard it as inaccurate, since the word translated as "idolatry" actually means "discord" or "oppression" or "persecution" (<a href="#CITEREFDuggan2007">Duggan 2007</a>) 
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-51">^</a></b> "I know it's all nonsense, but you've got to admit it's impressive nonsense." (<a href="#CITEREFBanks1994">Banks 1994</a>) 
</li>
</ol></div>
<h2>References[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=9">edit</a>]</h2>
<div>
<ol>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1994_1-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1994_1-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1994_1-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFBanks1994">Banks 1994</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBrown1996_2-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBrown1996_2-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBrown1996_2-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBrown1996_2-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFBrown1996">Brown 1996</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEJohnson1998_4-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEJohnson1998_4-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEJohnson1998_4-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFJohnson1998">Johnson 1998</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks2008_6-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks2008_6-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks2008_6-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFBanks2008">Banks 2008</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEJacksonHeilman2008_7-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEJacksonHeilman2008_7-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFJacksonHeilman2008">Jackson &amp; Heilman 2008</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-4"><sup><i><b>e</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-5"><sup><i><b>f</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-6"><sup><i><b>g</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorwich2002_8-7"><sup><i><b>h</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFHorwich2002">Horwich 2002</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1987_9-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1987_9-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFBanks1987">Banks 1987</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks2000_10-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks2000_10-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFBanks2000">Banks 2000</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1996_11-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1996_11-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1996_11-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1996_11-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1996_11-4"><sup><i><b>e</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFBanks1996">Banks 1996</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1988_12-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1988_12-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1988_12-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFBanks1988">Banks 1988</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHorton1997_16-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFHorton1997">Horton 1997</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1991_17-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFBanks1991">Banks 1991</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks1998_21-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFBanks1998">Banks 1998</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTELangford1998_22-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFLangford1998">Langford 1998</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEJohnson2008_25-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFJohnson2008">Johnson 2008</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks2010_26-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFBanks2010">Banks 2010</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBanks2012_29-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFBanks2012">Banks 2012</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEShoul2001_31-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFShoul2001">Shoul 2001</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTERichmond_Review1996_32-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFRichmond_Review1996">Richmond Review 1996</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEGevers2000_33-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEGevers2000_33-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFGevers2000">Gevers 2000</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEThe_Guardian2000_34-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEThe_Guardian2000_34-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFThe_Guardian2000">The Guardian 2000</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEButler2003_35-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEButler2003_35-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFButler2003">Butler 2003</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaker2003_36-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFBaker2003">Baker 2003</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEDuggan2007_37-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEDuggan2007_37-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEDuggan2007_37-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFDuggan2007">Duggan 2007</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEAjamiCohenHuntington2009_38-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFAjamiCohenHuntington2009">Ajami, Cohen &amp; Huntington 2009</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEMendelsohn2005_40-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEMendelsohn2005_40-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEMendelsohn2005_40-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFMendelsohn2005">Mendelsohn 2005</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEWestfahl2003_41-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFWestfahl2003">Westfahl 2003</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHollinger1997_42-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFHollinger1997">Hollinger 1997</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEStockwell2009_43-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFStockwell2009">Stockwell 2009</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHolt2007_44-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHolt2007_44-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEHolt2007_44-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFHolt2007">Holt 2007</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESleight2008_45-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESleight2008_45-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFSleight2008">Sleight 2008</a>.
</li>
<li>^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEAllberry2005_46-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEAllberry2005_46-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEAllberry2005_46-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#CITEREFAllberry2005">Allberry 2005</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEPoole2008_47-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFPoole2008">Poole 2008</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEVint200779–101_48-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFVint2007">Vint 2007</a>, p. 79–101.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEPalmer1999_49-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFPalmer1999">Palmer 1999</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESFF_World1997_50-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFSFF_World1997">SFF World 1997</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTELowe2008_52-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFLowe2008">Lowe 2008</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEGevers2002_53-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFGevers2002">Gevers 2002</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEMitchell1996_54-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFMitchell1996">Mitchell 1996</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEWilson1994_55-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFWilson1994">Wilson 1994</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESilver2004_56-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFSilver2004">Silver 2004</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEWalsh2002_57-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFWalsh2002">Walsh 2002</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTENonstop_Press2012_58-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFNonstop_Press2012">Nonstop Press 2012</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTECofield2016_59-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFCofield2016">Cofield 2016</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEArevalo2021_60-0">^</a></b> <a href="#CITEREFArevalo2021">Arevalo 2021</a>.
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-61">^</a></b> <cite><a href="https://fivedeeps.com/home/technology/names/">"Naming"</a>.</cite>
</li>
<li><b><a href="#cite_ref-62">^</a></b> <cite>Fridman, Lex (Apr 29, 2022). <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOwm7GUjcg8">"Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281"</a>. <i>Youtube</i>.</cite>
</li>
</ol></div>
<h2>Bibliography[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=10">edit</a>]</h2>
<h3>Primary sources[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=11">edit</a>]</h3>
<ul><li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (1987), <i>Consider Phlebas</i>, Orbit, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-138-4"><bdi>1-85723-138-4</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (1988), <i>The Player of Games</i>, Orbit, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-146-5"><bdi>1-85723-146-5</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (1991). <i>The State of the Art</i>. Orbit. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-356-19669-0"><bdi>0-356-19669-0</bdi></a>.</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (1994-08-10). <a href="https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.written/c/RMeezCFdROs/m/wuT-QSbjBSsJ">"A Few Notes on the Culture"</a>. <a href="/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup">Newsgroup</a>: <a>rec.arts.sf.written</a>. Retrieved 2021-08-03.</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (1996), <i>Excession</i>, Orbit, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-457-X"><bdi>1-85723-457-X</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (1998), <i>Inversions</i>, Orbit, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-763-3"><bdi>1-85723-763-3</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (2000), <i>Look to Windward</i>, Orbit, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-85723-969-5"><bdi>1-85723-969-5</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (2008), <i>Matter</i>, Orbit, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-84149-417-3"><bdi>978-1-84149-417-3</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (2010), <i>Surface Detail</i>, Orbit, p. 400, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-84149-893-5"><bdi>978-1-84149-893-5</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Banks, Iain M. (2012), <i>The Hydrogen Sonata</i>, Orbit, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0356501505"><bdi>978-0356501505</bdi></a></cite>.</li></ul>
<h3>Secondary sources[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=12">edit</a>]</h3>
<ul><li><cite>Brown, Carolyn (1996), <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NznwlEC5jVQC&amp;pg=PA57">"Utopias and Heterotopias: The 'Culture' of Iain M. Banks"</a>, in Littlewood, Derek; Stockwell, Peter (eds.), <i>Impossibility Fiction</i>, Rodopi, pp. 57–73, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/90-420-0032-5"><bdi>90-420-0032-5</bdi></a>, retrieved 2021-08-02</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Butler, Andrew M. (2003), <a href="http://www.efanzines.com/SFC/SteamEngineTime/SET04-2.pdf">"Thirteen Ways of Looking at the British Boom"</a> (PDF), <i>Science Fiction Studies</i>, <b>30</b> (3): 374–393, <a href="/wiki/JSTOR_(identifier)">JSTOR</a> <a href="//www.jstor.org/stable/4241200">4241200</a>, retrieved 2021-08-04</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Duggan, Robert (2007-12-22), "Iain M. Banks, Postmodernism and the Gulf War", <i>Extrapolation</i>, <b>48</b> (3): 558–577, <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)">doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.3828%2Fextr.2007.48.3.12">10.3828/extr.2007.48.3.12</a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Hollinger, Veronica (1997), <a href="http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/documents/introduction72.htm">"Introducing <i>Star Trek</i>"</a>, <i>Science Fiction Studies</i>, <b>24</b> (2)</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Horwich, David (2002-01-21), <a href="http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/culture-clash-ambivalent-heroes-and-the-ambiguous-utopia-in-the-work-of-iain-m-banks/">"Culture Clash: Ambivalent Heroes and the Ambiguous Utopia in the Work of Iain M. Banks"</a>, <i>Strange Horizons</i>, retrieved 2021-08-03</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus; Heilman, James (2008), <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-8iD6iuO-iAC&amp;pg=PA235">"Outside Context Problems: Liberalism and the Other in the Work of Iain M.Banks"</a>, in Hassler, D.M.; Wilcox, C. (eds.), <i>New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction</i>, University of South Carolina Press, pp. 235–258, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-57003-736-8"><bdi>978-1-57003-736-8</bdi></a>, retrieved 2008-12-09</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Mendelsohn, Farah (2005), <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PiphRocVYRwC&amp;pg=PA556">"Iain M.Banks: <i>Excession</i>"</a>, in Seed, David (ed.), <i>A Companion to Science Fiction</i>, Blackwell Publishing, pp. 556–566, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0470797010"><bdi>0470797010</bdi></a>, retrieved 2021-08-05</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Palmer, Christopher (1999), <a href="http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/77/palmer77.htm">"Galactic Empires and the Contemporary Extravaganza: Dan Simmons and Iain M. Banks"</a>, <i>Science Fiction Studies</i>, <b>26</b> (1), retrieved 2021-08-04</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Stockwell, Stephen (2009). <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10072/31808"><i>Utopia and Apocalypse: Political Philosophy and American TV Series</i></a>. <a href="http://www.auspsa.org.au/">APSA Conference</a>. <a href="/wiki/Hdl_(identifier)">hdl</a>:<a href="//hdl.handle.net/10072%2F31808">10072/31808</a>.</cite></li>
<li><cite>Vint, Sherryl (2007), <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=R5PITXl1fSMC"><i>Bodies of Tomorrow</i></a>, University of Toronto Press, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8020-9052-2"><bdi>978-0-8020-9052-2</bdi></a>, retrieved 2021-08-05</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Westfahl, Gary (2003), <a href="https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00jame/page/n226">"Space Opera"</a>, in James, Edward; Mendelsohn, Farah (eds.), <i>The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction</i>, Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–208, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-521-01657-6"><bdi>0-521-01657-6</bdi></a></cite>.</li></ul>
<h3>Interviews and reviews[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=13">edit</a>]</h3>
<ul><li><cite>Allberry, Russ (2005-11-18), <a href="http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-06-105356-2.html">"Review: <i>The Player of Games</i> by Iain M. Banks"</a>, <i>Eyrie</i>, retrieved 2009-02-17</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Baker, Neal (2003), "Review of <i>Dark Light</i>", in Butler, Andrew M.; Mendelsohn, Farah (eds.), <i>The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod</i>, Reading, UK: Science Fiction Foundation, pp. 95–97, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0903007023"><bdi>978-0903007023</bdi></a></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Gevers, Nick (2000), <a href="http://www.sfsite.com/11b/lw93.htm"><i></i>Look To Windward<i> (review)</i></a>, retrieved 2009-02-15</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Gevers, Nick (2002), <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081002115448/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue274/interview.html">"Cultured futurist Iain M. Banks creates an ornate utopia"</a>, <i>SciFi.com</i>, archived from <a href="http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue274/interview.html">the original</a> on 2008-10-02, retrieved 2009-02-16</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Holt, Tom (November 2007), <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081010093702/http://www.sfx.co.uk/resources/sfx/SFX162playerofgames.pdf">"<i>The Player of Games</i> (review)"</a> (PDF), <i>SFX Magazine</i>: 114, archived from <a href="http://www.sfx.co.uk/resources/sfx/SFX162playerofgames.pdf">the original</a> (PDF) on 2008-10-10, retrieved 2009-02-17</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Horton, Richard (1997-03-05), <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170128045438/http://www.sff.net/people/Richard.Horton/uow.htm"><i>Use of Weapons: Review</i></a>, archived from <a href="http://www.sff.net/people/Richard.Horton/uow.htm">the original</a> on 2017-01-28, retrieved 2009-02-17</cite>.</li>
<li><cite><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-science-fiction">"Iain M Banks (interview)"</a>, <i>The Guardian</i>, 2000-09-11, retrieved 2021-08-05</cite></li>
<li><cite><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090715133026/http://www.sffworld.com/interview/2p1.html">"Interview with Iain M. Banks"</a>, <i>SFF World</i>, 1997-06-01, archived from <a href="http://www.sffworld.com/interview/2p1.html">the original</a> on 2009-07-15, retrieved 2021-08-05</cite></li>
<li><cite>Johnson, Greg L. (2008), <a href="http://www.sfsite.com/06a/mt273.htm">"<i>Matter</i> (review)"</a>, <i>SF Site</i>, retrieved 2021-08-04</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Johnson, Greg L. (1998), <a href="http://www.sfsite.com/03a/exc28.htm">"<i>Excession</i> (review)"</a>, <i>SF Site</i>, retrieved 2009-02-15</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Langford, David (1998), <a href="http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/sfxrev98.html#inversions">"Iain M. Banks: <i>Inversions</i>"</a>, <i>Ansible.uk</i>, retrieved 2021-08-04</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Lowe, Greg (2008-03-24), <a href="http://www.spikemagazine.com/iain-banks-interview.php">"Iain Banks – Interview"</a>, <i>Spike Magazine</i>, retrieved 2021-08-09</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Mitchell, Chris (1996-09-03), <a href="http://www.spikemagazine.com/0996bank.php">"Iain Banks: <i>Whit</i> and <i>Excession</i>: Getting Used To Being God"</a>, <i>Spike Magazine</i>, retrieved 2021-08-04</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Parsons, Michael (2010-10-14), <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-10/14/iain-m-banks-interview">"Interview: Iain M Banks talks 'Surface Detail' with Wired"</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Wired_(magazine)">Wired</a></i>, retrieved 2021-08-02</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Poole, Steven (2008-02-09), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/09/fiction.iainbanks">"Culture Clashes: Review of <i>Matter</i> by Iain M. Banks"</a>, <i>The Guardian</i>, retrieved 2021-08-05</cite>.</li>
<li><cite><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130426200920/http://nonstop-press.com/?p=2439">"<i>Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010</i>"</a>, <i>Nonstop Press</i>, 2012-05-05, archived from <a href="http://nonstop-press.com/?p%3D2439">the original</a> on 2013-04-26, retrieved 2013-05-17</cite>.</li>
<li><cite><a href="http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/features/banksint.html"><i>A Quick Chat With Iain M. Banks</i></a>, The Richmond Review, 1996, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080512202147/http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/features/banksint.html">archived</a> from the original on 2008-05-12, retrieved 2021-08-05</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Shoul, Simeon (2001-08-01), <a href="http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/windward.htm"><i></i>Look to Windward<i> by Iain M. Banks (review)</i></a>, retrieved 2021-08-04</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Silver, Steven H. (2004-03-22), <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080517073827/http://www.sfsite.com/columns/news0403.htm"><i>SF Site: News</i></a>, archived from <a href="http://www.sfsite.com/columns/news0403.htm">the original</a> on 2008-05-17, retrieved 2009-02-17</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Sleight, Graham (2008-03-28), <a href="http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/03/locus-magazines-graham-sleight-reviews.html"><i>Locus Magazine's Graham Sleight reviews Iain M. Banks</i></a>, Locus Magazine, retrieved 2021-08-05</cite></li>
<li><cite>Walsh, Neil (2002), <a href="http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best02.htm">"Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001: Editors' Choice"</a>, <i>SF Site</i>, retrieved 2021-08-09</cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Wilson, Andrew (1994), <a href="http://textualities.net/tag/iain-m-banks/">"Iain Banks Interview"</a>, <i>Textualities</i>, retrieved 2009-02-17</cite>.</li></ul>
<h3>News sources[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Culture_series&amp;action=edit&amp;section=14">edit</a>]</h3>
<ul><li><cite>Ajami, Fouad; Cohen, Eliot A.; Huntington, Samuel P. (2009-01-14), <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090418211700/http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.29196,filter.all/pub_detail.asp">"Samuel P. Huntington, 1927–2008"</a>, <i>American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research</i>, archived from <a href="http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.29196,filter.all/pub_detail.asp">the original</a> on 2009-04-18, retrieved 2009-02-17</cite></li>
<li><cite>Arevalo, Evelyn (2021-07-09), <a href="https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/gravitas">"Elon Musk Shows Off New SpaceX Falcon 9 Autonomous Droneship -'A Shortfall Of Gravitas'"</a>, <i>Tesmanian</i></cite>.</li>
<li><cite>Cofield, Calla (2016-04-09), <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacex-sticks-a-rocket-landing-at-sea-in-historic-first/">"SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First"</a>, <i>Scientific American</i></cite>.</li></ul>
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 * 1 The Culture
 * 2 Books in the series
 * 3 Main themes
 * 4 Place within science fiction
 * 5 Literary techniques
 * 6 Genesis of the series
 * 7 Reception
 * 8 Notes
 * 9 References
 * 10 Bibliography
 + 10.1 Primary sources
 + 10.2 Secondary sources
 + 10.3 Interviews and reviews
 + 10.4 News sources
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 Culture series

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 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Culture series
 * Consider Phlebas (1987) 
 * The Player of Games (1988) 
 * Use of Weapons (1990) 
 * The State of the Art (1989)
 * Excession (1996) 
 * Inversions (1998) 
 * Look to Windward (2000) 
 * Matter (2008) 
 * Surface Detail (2010) 
 * The Hydrogen Sonata (2012) 
 Author Iain M. Banks 
 Country United Kingdom 
 Language English 
 Genre Science Fiction 
 Publisher Orbit 
 Published 1987 – 2012 
 Media type Print / Digital 
 No. of books 10 
 Website https://www.iain-banks.net
 

 The Culture series is a science fiction series written by Scottish author Iain M. Banks and released from 1987 through to 2012. The stories centre on The Culture, a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced superintelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats spread across the Milky Way galaxy. The main themes of the series are the dilemmas that an idealistic, more-advanced civilization faces in dealing with smaller, less-advanced civilizations that do not share its ideals, and whose behaviour it sometimes finds barbaric. In some of the stories action takes place mainly in non-Culture environments, and the leading characters are often on the fringes of (or non-members of) the Culture, sometimes acting as agents of Culture (knowing and unknowing) in its plans to civilize the galaxy. Each novel is a self-contained story with new characters, although reference is occasionally made to the events of previous novels.

 The Culture [ edit ]

 Main article: The Culture

 The Culture is a society formed by various humanoid species and artificial intelligences about 9,000 years before the events of novels in the series. Since the majority of its biological population can have almost anything they want without the need to work, there is little need for laws or enforcement, and the culture is described by Banks as space socialism.[1][2] It features a post-scarcity economy[a] where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated.[1] Its members live mainly in spaceships and other off-planet constructs, because its founders wished to avoid the centralised political and corporate power-structures that planet-based economies foster.[1] Most of the planning and administration is done by Minds, very advanced AIs.[3]

 Although the Culture has more advanced technology and a more powerful economy than the vast majority of known civilizations, it is only one of the "Involved" civilizations that take an active part in galactic affairs. The much older Homomda are slightly more advanced at the time of Consider Phlebas (this is, however, set several centuries before the other books, and Culture technology and martial power continue to advance in the interim);[b] the Morthanveld have a much larger population and economy, but are hampered by a more restrictive attitude to the role of AI in their society.[4] The capabilities of all such societies are vastly exceeded by those of the Elder civilisations (semi-retired from Galactic politics but who remain supremely potent) and even more so by those of the Sublimed, entities which have abandoned their material form for existence in the form of non-corporeal, multi-dimensional energy being. The Sublimed generally refrain from intervention in the material world.[5]

 Some other civilizations hold less favourable views of the Culture.[6] At the time of their war with the Culture, the Idirans and some of their allies regarded the control that the Minds exercised over the Culture as a form of idolatry.[2][7] The Homomda regard the Culture as idealistic and hyper-active.[8] Some members of the Culture have seceded to form related civilizations, known collectively as the Ulterior. These include the Peace Faction, the AhForgetIt Tendency and the Zetetic Elench. Others simply drop out temporarily or permanently.[9]

 Books in the series [ edit ]

 The Culture series comprises nine novels and one short story collection. The list, ordered by date of publishing, is:

 Title        First published Date in which set  ISBN 
 Consider Phlebas[7]       1987 1331 CE[b]  ISBN 1-85723-138-4 
 An episode in a full-scale war between the Culture and the Idirans, told mainly from the point of view of an operative of the Idiran Empire.[6]     
 The Player of Games[10]       1988 2083 to 2087/8 CE (approximate)[c]  ISBN 1-85723-146-5 
 A bored member of the Culture is blackmailed into being the Culture's agent in a plan to subvert a brutal, hierarchical empire. His mission is to win an empire-wide tournament by which the ruler of the empire is selected.[6]    
 Use of Weapons[10]       1990 2092 CE[d] in the main narrative stream. 1892 CE[e] at the start of the secondary narrative stream. ISBN 1-85723-135-X 
 Chapters describing the current mission of a Culture special agent born and raised on a non-Culture planet alternate with chapters that describe in reverse chronological order earlier missions and the traumatic events that made him who he is.[11]    
 The State of the Art[12]       1991 Various (title story takes place in 1977 CE)  ISBN 0-356-19669-0 
 A short story collection. Two of the works are explicitly set in the Culture universe ("The State of the Art" and "A Gift from the Culture"), with a third work ("Descendant") possibly set in the Culture universe. In the title novella, the Mind in charge of an expedition to Earth decides not to make contact or intervene in any way, but instead to use Earth as a control group in the Culture's long-term comparison of intervention and non-interference.[5]
 Excession[9]       1996 1867 CE (approximate)[f] in main setting. 1827 CE (approximate)[g] and 633 BCE (approximate)[h] in flashbacks. ISBN 1-85723-394-8 
 An alien artifact far advanced beyond the Culture's understanding is used by one group of Minds to lure a civilisation (the behaviour of which they disapprove) into war; another group of Minds works against the conspiracy. A sub-plot covers how two humanoids make up their differences after traumatic events that happened 40 years earlier.[9]  
 Inversions[13]       1998 Unspecified  ISBN 1-85723-763-3 
 Not explicitly a Culture novel, but recounts what appear to be the activities of a Special Circumstances agent and a Culture emigrant on a planet whose development is roughly equivalent to that of medieval Europe. The interwoven stories are told from the viewpoint of several of the locals.[14]   
 Look to Windward[8]       2000 2167 CE (approximate)[i]  ISBN 1-85723-969-5 
 The Culture has interfered in the development of a race known as the Chelgrians, with disastrous consequences. Now, in the light of a star that was destroyed 800 years previously during the Idiran War, plans for revenge are being hatched.[6]    
 Matter[4]       2008 1887 CE (approximate) or 2167 CE (approximate)[j] ISBN 1-84149-417-8 
 A Culture special agent who is a princess of an early-industrial society on a huge artificial planet learns that her father and brother have been killed and decides to return to her homeworld.[15] When she returns, she finds a far deeper threat.[4]    
 Surface Detail[16]       2010 Some time between 2767[k] and 2967 CE (approximate)[l] ISBN 1-84149-893-9 
 A young woman seeks revenge on her murderer after being brought back to life by Culture technology. Meanwhile, a war over the digitized souls of the dead is expanding from cyberspace into the real world.    
 The Hydrogen Sonata[17]       2012 2375 CE (approximate)[m]  ISBN 978-0356501505
 In the last days of the Gzilt civilisation, which is about to Sublime, a secret from far back in their history threatens to unravel their plans. Aided by a number of Culture vessels and their avatars, one of the Gzilt tries to discover if much of their history was actually a lie.   
 

 Main themes [ edit ]

 Since the Culture's biological population commonly live as long as 400 years[3] and have no need to work, they face the difficulty of giving meaning to their lives when the Minds and other intelligent machines can do almost anything better than the biological population can.[18] Many try—few successfully—to join Contact, the Culture's combined diplomatic / military / government service, and fewer still are invited to the even more elite Special Circumstances (SC), Contact's secret service and special operations division.[9] Normal Culture citizens vicariously derive meaning from their existence via the works of Contact and SC. Banks described the Culture as "some incredibly rich lady of leisure who does good, charitable works... Contact does that on a large scale."[19] The same need to find a purpose for existence contributed to the majority of the Culture embarking semi-voluntarily on its only recent full-scale war, to stop the expansion of the militaristic and expansionist Idirans—otherwise the Culture's economic and technological advancement would only have been an exercise in hedonism.[b]

 All of the stories feature the tension between the Culture's humane, anarcho-communist ideals and its need to intervene in the affairs of less enlightened and often less advanced civilisations.[2][20]The first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, describes an episode in the Idiran War, which the Culture's Minds foresaw would cause billions of deaths on both sides, but which their utilitarian calculations predicted would be the best course in the long term.[b] The Idiran War serves as a recurring reference point in most of the subsequent novels, influencing the Culture's development for centuries and dividing its residents—both humanoids and AI Minds—along the pacifist and interventionist ideals.

 In subsequent novels, the Culture—particularly SC and, to a lesser degree, Contact—continue to employ subterfuge, espionage, and even direct action (collectively called "dirty tricks") in order to protect itself and spread the Culture's "good works" and ideals. These dirty tricks include blackmailing persons, employing mercenaries, recruiting double agents, attempting to effect regime change, and even engaging in false flag operations against the Culture itself (potentially resulting in the death of billions).[2][9][10] Though each of these individual actions would horrify the average Culture citizen, the Culture's Minds tend to justify these actions in terms of lives saved in the long-term, perhaps over the course of several hundred years. The Culture is willing to use not only preemptive, but also retaliatory actions in order to deter future hostile actions against itself. Banks commented that in order to prevent atrocities, "even the Culture throws away its usual moral rule-book."[21] Andrew M. Butler noted that, "Having established the peaceful, utopian, game-playing tendencies of the Culture, ... in later volumes the Culture’s dirty tricks are more exposed."[22]

 The Culture stories have been described as "eerily prescient".[23] Consider Phlebas explicitly presents a clash of civilizations,[24] although this phrase was used by Samuel P. Huntington and earlier authors.[25] This is highlighted by the novel's description of the Idirans' expansion as a "jihad" and by its epigraphic verse from the Koran, "Idolatry is worse than carnage".[n] However, it was as much a "holy war" from the Culture's point of view.[24] Throughout the series, Contact and Special Circumstances show themselves willing to intervene, sometimes forcefully, in other civilizations to make them more Culture-like.

 Much of Look to Windward is a commentary on the Idiran-Culture war, from a viewpoint 800 years later, mainly reflecting grief over both personal and large-scale losses and guilt over actions taken in the war. It combines these with similar reflections on the catastrophic miscarriage of the Culture's attempt to dissolve the Chelgrians' oppressive caste system. In neither case, however, does distress over the consequences of Culture policy lead its representatives to reject that policy. The book illustrates the limitations of power, and also points out that Minds and other AIs are as vulnerable as biological persons to grief, guilt and regrets.[24]

 Place within science fiction [ edit ]

 Main articles: Science fiction and Space opera

 According to critic Farah Mendelson, the Culture stories are space opera, with certain elements that are free from scientific realism, and Banks uses this freedom extravagantly in order to focus on the human and political aspects of his universe; he rejects the dystopian direction of present-day capitalism, which both cyberpunk and earlier space operas assume, in creating a post-scarcity society as the primary civilization of focus.[26] Space opera had peaked in the 1930s, but started to decline as magazine editors such as John W. Campbell demanded more realistic approaches. By the 1960s many space operas were satires on earlier styles, such as Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero stories,[27] while televised and film space operas such as Star Trek and Star Wars were thought to have dumbed down the subgenre.[28][29] The Culture stories did much to revive space opera.[3][22]

 Literary techniques [ edit ]

 Banks has been described as "an incorrigible player of games" with both style and structure – and with the reader.[30] In both the Culture stories and his work outside science fiction, there are two sides to Banks, the "merry chatterer" who brings scenes to life and "the altogether less amiable character" who "engineers the often savage structure of his stories".[31] Banks uses a wide range of styles. The Player of Games opens in a leisurely manner as it presents the main character's sense of boredom and inertia,[32] and adopts for the main storyline a "spare, functional" style that contrasts with the "linguistic fireworks" of later stories.[30] Sometimes the styles used in Excession relate to the function and focal character of the scene: slow-paced and detailed for Dajeil, who is still mourning over traumatic events that happened decades earlier; a parody of huntin', shootin', and fishin' country gentlemen, sometimes reminiscent of P. G. Wodehouse, when describing the viewpoint of the Affront; the ship Serious Callers Only, afraid of becoming involved in the conflict between factions of Minds, speaks in cryptic verse, while the Sleeper Service, acting as a freelance detective, adopts a hardboiled style. On the other hand, Banks often wrong-foots readers by using prosaic descriptions for the grandest scenery, self-deprecation and humour for the most heroic actions, and a poetic style in describing one of the Affront's killings.[26]

 He delights in building up expectations and then surprising the reader.[ citation needed ] Even in The Player of Games, which has the simplest style and structure of the series, the last line of the epilogue reveals who was really pulling the strings all along.[30] In all the Culture stories, Banks subverts many clichés of space opera. The Minds are not plotting to take over the universe, and no-one is following a grand plan.[26] The darkly comic double-act of Ferbin and Holse in Matter is not something most writers would place in "the normally po-faced context of space opera".[31] Even the names of Culture spaceships are jokes – for example Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill, Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall (part of a running gag in the series[21]) and Liveware Problem (see liveware).[33]

 Banks often uses "outsiders" as viewpoint characters,[34] and said that using an enemy of the Culture as the main character of Consider Phlebas, the first story in the series, enabled him to present a more rounded view of the Culture.[ citation needed ] However, this character realises that his attempts to plan for anything that might conceivably happen on a mission are very similar to the way in which the Culture makes all its decisions, and by the end suspects he has chosen the wrong side.[6]

 The focal character of The Player of Games is bored with the lack of real challenges in his life,[6] is blackmailed into becoming a Culture agent, admires the vibrancy of the Azad Empire but is then disgusted by its brutality,[ citation needed ] and wins the final of the tournament by playing in a style that reflects the Culture's values.[6]

 Use of Weapons features a non-Culture mercenary who accepts the benefits of association with the Culture, including immortality as the fee for his first assignment, and completes several dangerous missions as a Culture agent, but complains that he is kept in the dark about the aims of his missions and that in some of the wars he has fought maybe the Culture was backing both sides, with good reason.[6]

 Look to Windward uses three commentators on the Culture, a near-immortal Behemothaur, a member of the race plunged into civil war by a Culture intervention that went wrong, and the ambassador of a race at similar technological level to the Culture's.[20]

 The action scenes of the Culture stories are comparable to those of blockbuster films.[35] In an interview, Banks said he would like Consider Phlebas to be filmed "with a very, very, very big budget indeed" and would not mind if the story were given a happy ending, provided the biggest action scenes were kept.[36] On the other hand, The Player of Games relies mainly on the psychological tension of the games by which the ruler of the Azad Empire is selected.[32]

 Banks is unspecific about many of the background details in the stories, such as the rules of the game that is the centrepiece of The Player of Games,[32] and cheerfully makes no attempt at scientific credibility.[o]

 Genesis of the series [ edit ]

 Banks says he conceived the Culture in the 1960s, and that it is a combination of wish fulfilment and a reaction against the predominantly right-wing science fiction produced in the United States.[37] In his opinion, the Culture might be a "great place to live", with no exploitation of people or AIs, and whose people could create beings greater than themselves.[38]

 Before his first published novel, The Wasp Factory (1984; not science fiction), was accepted in 1983, Banks wrote five books that were rejected, of which three were science fiction.[39] In Banks' first draft of Use of Weapons in 1974, his third attempt at a novel, the Culture was just a backdrop intended to show that the mercenary agent was working for the "good guys" and was responsible for his own misdeeds. At the time he persuaded his friend Ken MacLeod to read it and MacLeod tried to suggest improvements, but the book had too much purple prose and a very convoluted structure. In 1984, shortly after The Wasp Factory was published, MacLeod was asked to read Use of Weapons again, and said there was "a good novel in there struggling to get out", and suggested the interleaved forwards and backwards narratives that appeared in the published version in 1990. The novella The State of the Art, which provides the title of the 1991 collection, dates from 1979, the first draft of The Player of Games from 1980 and that of Consider Phlebas from 1982.[40]

 Reception [ edit ]

 Inversions won the 2004 Italia Science Fiction Award for the Best International Novel.[41]

 The American edition of Look to Windward was listed by the editors of SF Site as one of the "Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001" after the UK edition had missed out by just one place the previous year.[42]

 Use of Weapons was listed in Damien Broderick's book Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985–2010.[43]

 As a posthumous tribute to Iain Banks, aerospace manufacturer SpaceX named two of its autonomous spaceport drone ships after sentient star ships Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You which first appeared in the novel The Player of Games. A third drone craft was named A Shortfall of Gravitas, inspired by the star ship Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall in Look to Windward.[44][45]

 A further tribute was paid by the Five Deeps Expedition which named all of its craft after Culture ships and drones.[46]

 On an episode of Lex Fridman's podcast released on April 29, 2022, the artist Grimes said that Surface Detail of the Culture series is the greatest science fiction book ever written.[47]

 Notes [ edit ]

 1. ^ Banks: "It is my vision of what you do when you are in that post-scarcity society, you can completely indulge myself. The Culture has no unemployment problem, no one has to work, so all work is a form of play!" ( Parsons 2010 )
 2. ^ a b c d Early in the book it is stated that the war has been going on for four years, while the historical appendix states that the war began in 1327 CE. ( Banks 1987 , p. 467, A Short History of the Idiran War)
 3. ^ The ship Limiting Factor was "constructed seven hundred and sixteen years earlier in the closing stages of the Idiran war, when the conflict in space was almost over".( Banks 1988 ) The war in space ended in 1367. The events of the book take place over a period of four to five years from the time of this statement.
 4. ^ the events of the book are almost simultaneous with Diziet Sma's writing an account of her visit to Earth in 1977. In her preface to this account in "The State of the Art", she dates the visit to 115 years earlier.
 5. ^ At the end of the main narrative stream, Zakalwe says it has been two centuries since the battleship was taken.
 6. ^ The Gray Area reflects that the Excession is the most dangerous thing to be seen in the galaxy since the worst days of Idiran war, which took place five centuries before.
 7. ^ It's stated Dajeil has been pregnant for 40 years. [ citation needed ]
 8. ^ It's stated the GCU Problem Child found the black Dwarf star, and the first Excession, 2500 years before the events of the main plot. [ citation needed ]
 9. ^ The book says it occurs about 800 years after events near the end of the fighting in space in the Idiran War.
 10. ^ The book refers to the Sleeper Service incident in Excession as occurring 20 years previously; however, it also says that the Liveware Problem has been wandering for 800 years, having begun at the end of its service in the Idiran War.
 11. ^ The book states that the events of Look to Windward occurred about 600 years earlier ("However, as part of what were in effect war reparations after the Chel debacle, six hundred years ago..."), and repeatedly refers to the Idiran war as occurring about 1500 years earlier; the war formally ended in 1375.
 12. ^ Banks in an interview stated, "This one takes place about eight hundred years later on in the chronology of the culture"; at the time he was speaking the latest book in the culture chronology was set around 2167 ( Parsons 2010 )
 13. ^ The book states that the Interesting Times Gang from Excession has not been seen in almost 500 years; also, that it is about 1000 years after the Idiran war.
 14. ^ "Idolatry is worse than carnage" is presented as a translation of "The Koran, 2: 190"; but is actually a misplaced reference to Quran 2:217 , even then, modern scholars regard it as inaccurate, since the word translated as "idolatry" actually means "discord" or "oppression" or "persecution" ( Duggan 2007 )
 15. ^ "I know it's all nonsense, but you've got to admit it's impressive nonsense." ( Banks 1994 )

 References [ edit ]

 1. ^ a b c Banks 1994 .
 2. ^ a b c d Brown 1996 .
 3. ^ a b c Johnson 1998 .
 4. ^ a b c Banks 2008 .
 5. ^ a b Jackson & Heilman 2008 .
 6. ^ a b c d e f g h Horwich 2002 .
 7. ^ a b Banks 1987 .
 8. ^ a b Banks 2000 .
 9. ^ a b c d e Banks 1996 .
 10. ^ a b c Banks 1988 .
 11. ^ Horton 1997 .
 12. ^ Banks 1991 .
 13. ^ Banks 1998 .
 14. ^ Langford 1998 .
 15. ^ Johnson 2008 .
 16. ^ Banks 2010 .
 17. ^ Banks 2012 .
 18. ^ Shoul 2001 .
 19. ^ Richmond Review 1996 .
 20. ^ a b Gevers 2000 .
 21. ^ a b The Guardian 2000 .
 22. ^ a b Butler 2003 .
 23. ^ Baker 2003 .
 24. ^ a b c Duggan 2007 .
 25. ^ Ajami, Cohen & Huntington 2009 .
 26. ^ a b c Mendelsohn 2005 .
 27. ^ Westfahl 2003 .
 28. ^ Hollinger 1997 .
 29. ^ Stockwell 2009 .
 30. ^ a b c Holt 2007 .
 31. ^ a b Sleight 2008 .
 32. ^ a b c Allberry 2005 .
 33. ^ Poole 2008 .
 34. ^ Vint 2007 , p. 79–101.
 35. ^ Palmer 1999 .
 36. ^ SFF World 1997 .
 37. ^ Lowe 2008 .
 38. ^ Gevers 2002 .
 39. ^ Mitchell 1996 .
 40. ^ Wilson 1994 .
 41. ^ Silver 2004 .
 42. ^ Walsh 2002 .
 43. ^ Nonstop Press 2012 .
 44. ^ Cofield 2016 .
 45. ^ Arevalo 2021 .
 46. ^ "Naming".
 47. ^ Fridman, Lex (Apr 29, 2022). "Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281". Youtube.

 Bibliography [ edit ]

 Primary sources [ edit ]

 * Banks, Iain M. (1987), Consider Phlebas, Orbit, ISBN 1-85723-138-4.
 * Banks, Iain M. (1988), The Player of Games, Orbit, ISBN 1-85723-146-5.
 * Banks, Iain M. (1991). The State of the Art. Orbit. ISBN 0-356-19669-0..
 * Banks, Iain M. (1994-08-10). "A Few Notes on the Culture". Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written . Retrieved 2021-08-03 ..
 * Banks, Iain M. (1996), Excession, Orbit, ISBN 1-85723-457-X.
 * Banks, Iain M. (1998), Inversions, Orbit, ISBN 1-85723-763-3.
 * Banks, Iain M. (2000), Look to Windward, Orbit, ISBN 1-85723-969-5.
 * Banks, Iain M. (2008), Matter, Orbit, ISBN 978-1-84149-417-3.
 * Banks, Iain M. (2010), Surface Detail, Orbit, p. 400, ISBN 978-1-84149-893-5.
 * Banks, Iain M. (2012), The Hydrogen Sonata, Orbit, ISBN 978-0356501505.

 Secondary sources [ edit ]

 * Brown, Carolyn (1996), "Utopias and Heterotopias: The 'Culture' of Iain M. Banks", in Littlewood, Derek; Stockwell, Peter (eds.), Impossibility Fiction, Rodopi, pp. 57–73, ISBN 90-420-0032-5 , retrieved 2021-08-02 .
 * Butler, Andrew M. (2003), "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the British Boom" (PDF) , Science Fiction Studies, 30 (3): 374–393, JSTOR 4241200 , retrieved 2021-08-04 .
 * Duggan, Robert (2007-12-22), "Iain M. Banks, Postmodernism and the Gulf War", Extrapolation, 48 (3): 558–577, doi:10.3828/extr.2007.48.3.12.
 * Hollinger, Veronica (1997), "Introducing Star Trek", Science Fiction Studies, 24 (2).
 * Horwich, David (2002-01-21), "Culture Clash: Ambivalent Heroes and the Ambiguous Utopia in the Work of Iain M. Banks", Strange Horizons , retrieved 2021-08-03 .
 * Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus; Heilman, James (2008), "Outside Context Problems: Liberalism and the Other in the Work of Iain M.Banks", in Hassler, D.M.; Wilcox, C. (eds.), New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction, University of South Carolina Press, pp. 235–258, ISBN 978-1-57003-736-8 , retrieved 2008-12-09 .
 * Mendelsohn, Farah (2005), "Iain M.Banks: Excession", in Seed, David (ed.), A Companion to Science Fiction, Blackwell Publishing, pp. 556–566, ISBN 0470797010 , retrieved 2021-08-05 .
 * Palmer, Christopher (1999), "Galactic Empires and the Contemporary Extravaganza: Dan Simmons and Iain M. Banks", Science Fiction Studies, 26 (1) , retrieved 2021-08-04 .
 * Stockwell, Stephen (2009). Utopia and Apocalypse: Political Philosophy and American TV Series. APSA Conference. hdl:10072/31808.
 * Vint, Sherryl (2007), Bodies of Tomorrow, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 978-0-8020-9052-2 , retrieved 2021-08-05 .
 * Westfahl, Gary (2003), "Space Opera", in James, Edward; Mendelsohn, Farah (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–208, ISBN 0-521-01657-6.

 Interviews and reviews [ edit ]

 * Allberry, Russ (2005-11-18), "Review: The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks", Eyrie , retrieved 2009-02-17 .
 * Baker, Neal (2003), "Review of Dark Light", in Butler, Andrew M.; Mendelsohn, Farah (eds.), The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod, Reading, UK: Science Fiction Foundation, pp. 95–97, ISBN 978-0903007023.
 * Gevers, Nick (2000), Look To Windward (review) , retrieved 2009-02-15 .
 * Gevers, Nick (2002), "Cultured futurist Iain M. Banks creates an ornate utopia", SciFi.com, archived from the original on 2008-10-02 , retrieved 2009-02-16 .
 * Holt, Tom (November 2007), "The Player of Games (review)" (PDF) , SFX Magazine: 114, archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-10 , retrieved 2009-02-17 .
 * Horton, Richard (1997-03-05), Use of Weapons: Review, archived from the original on 2017-01-28 , retrieved 2009-02-17 .
 * "Iain M Banks (interview)", The Guardian, 2000-09-11 , retrieved 2021-08-05
 * "Interview with Iain M. Banks", SFF World, 1997-06-01, archived from the original on 2009-07-15 , retrieved 2021-08-05
 * Johnson, Greg L. (2008), "Matter (review)", SF Site , retrieved 2021-08-04 .
 * Johnson, Greg L. (1998), "Excession (review)", SF Site , retrieved 2009-02-15 .
 * Langford, David (1998), "Iain M. Banks: Inversions", Ansible.uk , retrieved 2021-08-04 .
 * Lowe, Greg (2008-03-24), "Iain Banks – Interview", Spike Magazine , retrieved 2021-08-09 .
 * Mitchell, Chris (1996-09-03), "Iain Banks: Whit and Excession: Getting Used To Being God", Spike Magazine , retrieved 2021-08-04 .
 * Parsons, Michael (2010-10-14), "Interview: Iain M Banks talks 'Surface Detail' with Wired", Wired , retrieved 2021-08-02 .
 * Poole, Steven (2008-02-09), "Culture Clashes: Review of Matter by Iain M. Banks", The Guardian , retrieved 2021-08-05 .
 * "Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010", Nonstop Press, 2012-05-05, archived from the original on 2013-04-26 , retrieved 2013-05-17 .
 * A Quick Chat With Iain M. Banks, The Richmond Review, 1996, archived from the original on 2008-05-12 , retrieved 2021-08-05 .
 * Shoul, Simeon (2001-08-01), Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks (review) , retrieved 2021-08-04 .
 * Silver, Steven H. (2004-03-22), SF Site: News, archived from the original on 2008-05-17 , retrieved 2009-02-17 .
 * Sleight, Graham (2008-03-28), Locus Magazine's Graham Sleight reviews Iain M. Banks, Locus Magazine , retrieved 2021-08-05
 * Walsh, Neil (2002), "Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001: Editors' Choice", SF Site , retrieved 2021-08-09 .
 * Wilson, Andrew (1994), "Iain Banks Interview", Textualities , retrieved 2009-02-17 .

 News sources [ edit ]

 * Ajami, Fouad; Cohen, Eliot A.; Huntington, Samuel P. (2009-01-14), "Samuel P. Huntington, 1927–2008", American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, archived from the original on 2009-04-18 , retrieved 2009-02-17
 * Arevalo, Evelyn (2021-07-09), "Elon Musk Shows Off New SpaceX Falcon 9 Autonomous Droneship -'A Shortfall Of Gravitas'", Tesmanian.
 * Cofield, Calla (2016-04-09), "SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First", Scientific American.
 * v 
 * t 
 * e 
 Iain M. Banks's Culture series
 * Consider Phlebas 
 * The Player of Games 
 * Use of Weapons 
 * The State of the Art 
 + "A Gift from the Culture"
 The Culture * Excession 
 * Inversions 
 * Look to Windward 
 * Matter 
 * Surface Detail 
 * The Hydrogen Sonata 
 
 * v 
 * t 
 * e 
 Works of Iain Banks
 * The Wasp Factory (1984) 
 * Walking on Glass (1985) 
 * The Bridge (1986) 
 * Espedair Street (1987) 
 * Canal Dreams (1989) 
 * The Crow Road (1992) 
 Fiction * Complicity (1993) 
 * Whit (1995) 
 As Iain Banks * A Song of Stone (1997) 
 * The Business (1999) 
 * Dead Air (2002) 
 * The Steep Approach to Garbadale (2007) 
 * Stonemouth (2012) 
 * The Quarry (2013) 
 Non-fiction * Raw Spirit (2003) 
 * Poems (with Ken MacLeod) (2015) 
  
  * Consider Phlebas (1987) 
  * The Player of Games (1988) 
  * Use of Weapons (1990) 
  * The State of the Art (1991) 
  + "A Gift from the Culture" (1987)
 Culture series * Excession (1996) 
  * Inversions (1998) 
 As Iain M. Banks * Look to Windward (2000) 
  * Matter (2008) 
  * Surface Detail (2010) 
  * The Hydrogen Sonata (2012) 
  * Against a Dark Background (1993) 
 Other works * Feersum Endjinn (1994) 
  * The Algebraist (2004) 
  * Transition (2009) 
  
 
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Culture series     
   Consider Phlebas  (1987)
  The Player of Games  (1988)
  Use of Weapons  (1990)
  The State of the Art  (1989)
  Excession  (1996)
  Inversions  (1998)
  Look to Windward  (2000)
  Matter  (2008)
  Surface Detail  (2010)
  The Hydrogen Sonata  (2012) 
     Author  Iain M. Banks    Country United Kingdom   Language English   Genre Science Fiction   Publisher Orbit   Published 1987 – 2012   Media type Print / Digital   No. of books 10   Website  https://www.iain-banks.net    
The  Culture series is a science fiction series written by Scottish author Iain M. Banks and released from 1987 through to 2012. The stories centre on The Culture, a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced superintelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats spread across the Milky Way galaxy. The main themes of the series are the dilemmas that an idealistic, more-advanced civilization faces in dealing with smaller, less-advanced civilizations that do not share its ideals, and whose behaviour it sometimes finds barbaric. In some of the stories action takes place mainly in non-Culture environments, and the leading characters are often on the fringes of (or non-members of) the Culture, sometimes acting as agents of Culture (knowing and unknowing) in its plans to civilize the galaxy. Each novel is a self-contained story with new characters, although reference is occasionally made to the events of previous novels.
The Culture[edit]
The Culture is a society formed by various humanoid species and artificial intelligences about 9,000 years before the events of novels in the series. Since the majority of its biological population can have almost anything they want without the need to work, there is little need for laws or enforcement, and the culture is described by Banks as space socialism. [1]   [2]  It features a post-scarcity economy  [a]  where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated. [1]  Its members live mainly in spaceships and other off-planet constructs, because its founders wished to avoid the centralised political and corporate power-structures that planet-based economies foster. [1]  Most of the planning and administration is done by Minds, very advanced AIs. [3] 
 Although the Culture has more advanced technology and a more powerful economy than the vast majority of known civilizations, it is only one of the "Involved" civilizations that take an active part in galactic affairs. The much older Homomda are slightly more advanced at the time of Consider Phlebas (this is, however, set several centuries before the other books, and Culture technology and martial power continue to advance in the interim); [b]  the Morthanveld have a much larger population and economy, but are hampered by a more restrictive attitude to the role of AI in their society. [4]  The capabilities of all such societies are vastly exceeded by those of the Elder civilisations (semi-retired from Galactic politics but who remain supremely potent) and even more so by those of the Sublimed, entities which have abandoned their material form for existence in the form of non-corporeal, multi-dimensional energy being. The Sublimed generally refrain from intervention in the material world. [5] 
 Some other civilizations hold less favourable views of the Culture. [6]  At the time of their war with the Culture, the Idirans and some of their allies regarded the control that the Minds exercised over the Culture as a form of idolatry. [2]   [7]  The Homomda regard the Culture as idealistic and hyper-active. [8]  Some members of the Culture have seceded to form related civilizations, known collectively as the Ulterior. These include the Peace Faction, the AhForgetIt Tendency and the Zetetic Elench. Others simply drop out temporarily or permanently. [9] 
Books in the series[edit]
The Culture series comprises nine novels and one short story collection. The list, ordered by date of publishing, is:
 
Title
First published
Date in which set
ISBN
     Consider Phlebas  [7]    1987 1331 CE  [b]    ISBN 1-85723-138-4    
An episode in a full-scale war between the Culture and the Idirans, told mainly from the point of view of an operative of the Idiran Empire. [6]   
   The Player of Games  [10]    1988 2083 to 2087/8 CE (approximate) [c]    ISBN 1-85723-146-5    
A bored member of the Culture is blackmailed into being the Culture's agent in a plan to subvert a brutal, hierarchical empire. His mission is to win an empire-wide tournament by which the ruler of the empire is selected. [6]   
   Use of Weapons  [10]    1990 2092 CE [d]  in the main narrative stream. 1892 CE [e]  at the start of the secondary narrative stream.  ISBN 1-85723-135-X    
Chapters describing the current mission of a Culture special agent born and raised on a non-Culture planet alternate with chapters that describe in reverse chronological order earlier missions and the traumatic events that made him who he is. [11]   
   The State of the Art  [12]    1991 Various (title story takes place in 1977 CE)  ISBN 0-356-19669-0    
A short story collection. Two of the works are explicitly set in the Culture universe ("The State of the Art" and "A Gift from the Culture"), with a third work ("Descendant") possibly set in the Culture universe. In the title novella, the Mind in charge of an expedition to Earth decides not to make contact or intervene in any way, but instead to use Earth as a control group in the Culture's long-term comparison of intervention and non-interference. [5]   
   Excession  [9]    1996 1867 CE (approximate) [f]  in main setting. 1827 CE (approximate) [g]  and 633 BCE (approximate) [h]  in flashbacks.  ISBN 1-85723-394-8    
An alien artifact far advanced beyond the Culture's understanding is used by one group of Minds to lure a civilisation (the behaviour of which they disapprove) into war; another group of Minds works against the conspiracy. A sub-plot covers how two humanoids make up their differences after traumatic events that happened 40 years earlier. [9]   
   Inversions  [13]    1998 Unspecified  ISBN 1-85723-763-3    
Not explicitly a Culture novel, but recounts what appear to be the activities of a Special Circumstances agent and a Culture emigrant on a planet whose development is roughly equivalent to that of medieval Europe. The interwoven stories are told from the viewpoint of several of the locals. [14]   
   Look to Windward  [8]    2000 2167 CE (approximate) [i]    ISBN 1-85723-969-5    
The Culture has interfered in the development of a race known as the Chelgrians, with disastrous consequences. Now, in the light of a star that was destroyed 800 years previously during the Idiran War, plans for revenge are being hatched. [6]   
   Matter  [4]    2008 1887 CE (approximate) or 2167 CE (approximate) [j]    ISBN 1-84149-417-8    
A Culture special agent who is a princess of an early-industrial society on a huge artificial planet learns that her father and brother have been killed and decides to return to her homeworld. [15]  When she returns, she finds a far deeper threat. [4]   
   Surface Detail  [16]    2010 Some time between 2767 [k]  and 2967 CE (approximate) [l]    ISBN 1-84149-893-9    
A young woman seeks revenge on her murderer after being brought back to life by Culture technology. Meanwhile, a war over the digitized souls of the dead is expanding from cyberspace into the real world. 
   The Hydrogen Sonata  [17]    2012 2375 CE (approximate) [m]    ISBN 978-0356501505    
In the last days of the Gzilt civilisation, which is about to Sublime, a secret from far back in their history threatens to unravel their plans. Aided by a number of Culture vessels and their avatars, one of the Gzilt tries to discover if much of their history was actually a lie. 
 
Main themes[edit]
Since the Culture's biological population commonly live as long as 400 years [3]  and have no need to work, they face the difficulty of giving meaning to their lives when the Minds and other intelligent machines can do almost anything better than the biological population can. [18]  Many try—few successfully—to join Contact, the Culture's combined diplomatic / military / government service, and fewer still are invited to the even more elite Special Circumstances (SC), Contact's secret service and special operations division. [9]  Normal Culture citizens vicariously derive meaning from their existence via the works of Contact and SC. Banks described the Culture as "some incredibly rich lady of leisure who does good, charitable works... Contact does that on a large scale." [19]  The same need to find a purpose for existence contributed to the majority of the Culture embarking semi-voluntarily on its only recent full-scale war, to stop the expansion of the militaristic and expansionist Idirans—otherwise the Culture's economic and technological advancement would only have been an exercise in hedonism. [b] 
 All of the stories feature the tension between the Culture's humane, anarcho-communist ideals and its need to intervene in the affairs of less enlightened and often less advanced civilisations. [2]   [20] The first Culture novel,  Consider Phlebas , describes an episode in the Idiran War, which the Culture's Minds foresaw would cause billions of deaths on both sides, but which their utilitarian calculations predicted would be the best course in the long term. [b]  The Idiran War serves as a recurring reference point in most of the subsequent novels, influencing the Culture's development for centuries and dividing its residents—both humanoids and AI Minds—along the pacifist and interventionist ideals.
 In subsequent novels, the Culture—particularly SC and, to a lesser degree, Contact—continue to employ subterfuge, espionage, and even direct action (collectively called "dirty tricks") in order to protect itself and spread the Culture's "good works" and ideals. These dirty tricks include blackmailing persons, employing mercenaries, recruiting double agents, attempting to effect regime change, and even engaging in false flag operations against the Culture itself (potentially resulting in the death of billions). [2]   [9]   [10]  Though each of these individual actions would horrify the average Culture citizen, the Culture's Minds tend to justify these actions in terms of lives saved in the long-term, perhaps over the course of several hundred years. The Culture is willing to use not only preemptive, but also retaliatory actions in order to deter future hostile actions against itself. Banks commented that in order to prevent atrocities, "even the Culture throws away its usual moral rule-book." [21]  Andrew M. Butler noted that, "Having established the peaceful, utopian, game-playing tendencies of the Culture, ... in later volumes the Culture’s dirty tricks are more exposed." [22] 
 The Culture stories have been described as "eerily prescient". [23]  Consider Phlebas explicitly presents a clash of civilizations, [24]  although this phrase was used by Samuel P. Huntington and earlier authors. [25]  This is highlighted by the novel's description of the Idirans' expansion as a "jihad" and by its epigraphic verse from the Koran, "Idolatry is worse than carnage". [n]  However, it was as much a "holy war" from the Culture's point of view. [24]  Throughout the series, Contact and Special Circumstances show themselves willing to intervene, sometimes forcefully, in other civilizations to make them more Culture-like.
 Much of Look to Windward is a commentary on the Idiran-Culture war, from a viewpoint 800 years later, mainly reflecting grief over both personal and large-scale losses and guilt over actions taken in the war. It combines these with similar reflections on the catastrophic miscarriage of the Culture's attempt to dissolve the Chelgrians' oppressive caste system. In neither case, however, does distress over the consequences of Culture policy lead its representatives to reject that policy. The book illustrates the limitations of power, and also points out that Minds and other AIs are as vulnerable as biological persons to grief, guilt and regrets. [24] 
Place within science fiction[edit]
According to critic Farah Mendelson, the Culture stories are space opera, with certain elements that are free from scientific realism, and Banks uses this freedom extravagantly in order to focus on the human and political aspects of his universe; he rejects the dystopian direction of present-day capitalism, which both cyberpunk and earlier space operas assume, in creating a post-scarcity society as the primary civilization of focus. [26]  Space opera had peaked in the 1930s, but started to decline as magazine editors such as John W. Campbell demanded more realistic approaches. By the 1960s many space operas were satires on earlier styles, such as Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero stories, [27]  while televised and film space operas such as  Star Trek  and  Star Wars  were thought to have dumbed down the subgenre. [28]   [29]  The Culture stories did much to revive space opera. [3]   [22] 
Literary techniques[edit]
Banks has been described as "an incorrigible player of games" with both style and structure – and with the reader. [30]  In both the Culture stories and his work outside science fiction, there are two sides to Banks, the "merry chatterer" who brings scenes to life and "the altogether less amiable character" who "engineers the often savage structure of his stories". [31]  Banks uses a wide range of styles.  The Player of Games  opens in a leisurely manner as it presents the main character's sense of boredom and inertia, [32]  and adopts for the main storyline a "spare, functional" style that contrasts with the "linguistic fireworks" of later stories. [30]  Sometimes the styles used in  Excession  relate to the function and focal character of the scene: slow-paced and detailed for Dajeil, who is still mourning over traumatic events that happened decades earlier; a parody of huntin', shootin', and fishin' country gentlemen, sometimes reminiscent of P. G. Wodehouse, when describing the viewpoint of the Affront; the ship Serious Callers Only, afraid of becoming involved in the conflict between factions of Minds, speaks in cryptic verse, while the Sleeper Service, acting as a freelance detective, adopts a hardboiled style. On the other hand, Banks often wrong-foots readers by using prosaic descriptions for the grandest scenery, self-deprecation and humour for the most heroic actions, and a poetic style in describing one of the Affront's killings. [26] 
 He delights in building up expectations and then surprising the reader.[ citation needed ] Even in The Player of Games, which has the simplest style and structure of the series, the last line of the epilogue reveals who was really pulling the strings all along. [30]  In all the Culture stories, Banks subverts many clichés of space opera. The Minds are not plotting to take over the universe, and no-one is following a grand plan. [26]  The darkly comic double-act of Ferbin and Holse in  Matter  is not something most writers would place in "the normally po-faced context of space opera". [31]  Even the names of Culture spaceships are jokes – for example Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill, Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall (part of a running gag in the series [21] ) and Liveware Problem (see liveware). [33] 
 Banks often uses "outsiders" as viewpoint characters, [34]  and said that using an enemy of the Culture as the main character of Consider Phlebas, the first story in the series, enabled him to present a more rounded view of the Culture.[ citation needed ] However, this character realises that his attempts to plan for anything that might conceivably happen on a mission are very similar to the way in which the Culture makes all its decisions, and by the end suspects he has chosen the wrong side. [6] 
 The focal character of The Player of Games is bored with the lack of real challenges in his life, [6]  is blackmailed into becoming a Culture agent, admires the vibrancy of the Azad Empire but is then disgusted by its brutality,[ citation needed ] and wins the final of the tournament by playing in a style that reflects the Culture's values. [6] 
  Use of Weapons features a non-Culture mercenary who accepts the benefits of association with the Culture, including immortality as the fee for his first assignment, and completes several dangerous missions as a Culture agent, but complains that he is kept in the dark about the aims of his missions and that in some of the wars he has fought maybe the Culture was backing both sides, with good reason. [6] 
  Look to Windward uses three commentators on the Culture, a near-immortal Behemothaur, a member of the race plunged into civil war by a Culture intervention that went wrong, and the ambassador of a race at similar technological level to the Culture's. [20] 
 The action scenes of the Culture stories are comparable to those of blockbuster films. [35]  In an interview, Banks said he would like  Consider Phlebas  to be filmed "with a very, very, very big budget indeed" and would not mind if the story were given a happy ending, provided the biggest action scenes were kept. [36]  On the other hand, The Player of Games relies mainly on the psychological tension of the games by which the ruler of the Azad Empire is selected. [32] 
 Banks is unspecific about many of the background details in the stories, such as the rules of the game that is the centrepiece of The Player of Games, [32]  and cheerfully makes no attempt at scientific credibility. [o] 
Genesis of the series[edit]
Banks says he conceived the Culture in the 1960s, and that it is a combination of wish fulfilment and a reaction against the predominantly right-wing science fiction produced in the United States. [37]  In his opinion, the Culture might be a "great place to live", with no exploitation of people or AIs, and whose people could create beings greater than themselves. [38] 
 Before his first published novel,  The Wasp Factory  (1984; not science fiction), was accepted in 1983, Banks wrote five books that were rejected, of which three were science fiction. [39]  In Banks' first draft of  Use of Weapons  in 1974, his third attempt at a novel, the Culture was just a backdrop intended to show that the mercenary agent was working for the "good guys" and was responsible for his own misdeeds. At the time he persuaded his friend Ken MacLeod to read it and MacLeod tried to suggest improvements, but the book had too much purple prose and a very convoluted structure. In 1984, shortly after The Wasp Factory was published, MacLeod was asked to read Use of Weapons again, and said there was "a good novel in there struggling to get out", and suggested the interleaved forwards and backwards narratives that appeared in the published version in 1990. The novella  The State of the Art , which provides the title of the 1991 collection, dates from 1979, the first draft of  The Player of Games  from 1980 and that of  Consider Phlebas  from 1982. [40] 
Reception[edit]
  Inversions  won the 2004 Italia Science Fiction Award for the Best International Novel. [41] 
 The American edition of  Look to Windward  was listed by the editors of SF Site as one of the "Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001" after the UK edition had missed out by just one place the previous year. [42] 
   Use of Weapons  was listed in Damien Broderick's book Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985–2010. [43] 
 As a posthumous tribute to Iain Banks, aerospace manufacturer SpaceX named two of its autonomous spaceport drone ships after sentient star ships Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You which first appeared in the novel  The Player of Games. A third drone craft was named A Shortfall of Gravitas, inspired by the star ship Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall in  Look to Windward . [44]   [45] 
 A further tribute was paid by the Five Deeps Expedition which named all of its craft after Culture ships and drones. [46] 
 On an episode of Lex Fridman's podcast released on April 29, 2022, the artist Grimes said that Surface Detail of the Culture series is the greatest science fiction book ever written. [47] 
Notes[edit]
 
  ^  Banks: "It is my vision of what you do when you are in that post-scarcity society, you can completely indulge myself. The Culture has no unemployment problem, no one has to work, so all work is a form of play!" (Parsons 2010) 
^    a       b       c       d    Early in the book it is stated that the war has been going on for four years, while the historical appendix states that the war began in 1327 CE. (Banks 1987, p. 467, A Short History of the Idiran War) 
  ^  The ship Limiting Factor was "constructed seven hundred and sixteen years earlier in the closing stages of the Idiran war, when the conflict in space was almost over".(Banks 1988) The war in space ended in 1367. The events of the book take place over a period of four to five years from the time of this statement.
  ^  the events of the book are almost simultaneous with Diziet Sma's writing an account of her visit to Earth in 1977. In her preface to this account in "The State of the Art", she dates the visit to 115 years earlier.
  ^  At the end of the main narrative stream, Zakalwe says it has been two centuries since the battleship was taken.
  ^  The Gray Area reflects that the Excession is the most dangerous thing to be seen in the galaxy since the worst days of Idiran war, which took place five centuries before.
  ^  It's stated Dajeil has been pregnant for 40 years.[ citation needed ] 
  ^  It's stated the GCU Problem Child found the black Dwarf star, and the first Excession, 2500 years before the events of the main plot.[ citation needed ] 
  ^  The book says it occurs about 800 years after events near the end of the fighting in space in the Idiran War.
  ^  The book refers to the Sleeper Service incident in Excession as occurring 20 years previously; however, it also says that the Liveware Problem has been wandering for 800 years, having begun at the end of its service in the Idiran War.
  ^  The book states that the events of Look to Windward occurred about 600 years earlier ("However, as part of what were in effect war reparations after the Chel debacle, six hundred years ago..."), and repeatedly refers to the Idiran war as occurring about 1500 years earlier; the war formally ended in 1375.
  ^  Banks in an interview stated, "This one takes place about eight hundred years later on in the chronology of the culture"; at the time he was speaking the latest book in the culture chronology was set around 2167 (Parsons 2010) 
  ^  The book states that the Interesting Times Gang from Excession has not been seen in almost 500 years; also, that it is about 1000 years after the Idiran war.
  ^  "Idolatry is worse than carnage" is presented as a translation of "The Koran, 2: 190"; but is actually a misplaced reference to Quran 2:217, even then, modern scholars regard it as inaccurate, since the word translated as "idolatry" actually means "discord" or "oppression" or "persecution" (Duggan 2007) 
  ^  "I know it's all nonsense, but you've got to admit it's impressive nonsense." (Banks 1994) 
 
References[edit]
^    a       b       c    Banks 1994.
^    a       b       c       d    Brown 1996.
^    a       b       c    Johnson 1998.
^    a       b       c    Banks 2008.
^    a       b    Jackson &amp; Heilman 2008.
^    a       b       c       d       e       f       g       h    Horwich 2002.
^    a       b    Banks 1987.
^    a       b    Banks 2000.
^    a       b       c       d       e    Banks 1996.
^    a       b       c    Banks 1988.
  ^  Horton 1997.
  ^  Banks 1991.
  ^  Banks 1998.
  ^  Langford 1998.
  ^  Johnson 2008.
  ^  Banks 2010.
  ^  Banks 2012.
  ^  Shoul 2001.
  ^  Richmond Review 1996.
^    a       b    Gevers 2000.
^    a       b    The Guardian 2000.
^    a       b    Butler 2003.
  ^  Baker 2003.
^    a       b       c    Duggan 2007.
  ^  Ajami, Cohen &amp; Huntington 2009.
^    a       b       c    Mendelsohn 2005.
  ^  Westfahl 2003.
  ^  Hollinger 1997.
  ^  Stockwell 2009.
^    a       b       c    Holt 2007.
^    a       b    Sleight 2008.
^    a       b       c    Allberry 2005.
  ^  Poole 2008.
  ^  Vint 2007, p. 79–101.
  ^  Palmer 1999.
  ^  SFF World 1997.
  ^  Lowe 2008.
  ^  Gevers 2002.
  ^  Mitchell 1996.
  ^  Wilson 1994.
  ^  Silver 2004.
  ^  Walsh 2002.
  ^  Nonstop Press 2012.
  ^  Cofield 2016.
  ^  Arevalo 2021.
  ^   "Naming".
  ^  Fridman, Lex (Apr 29, 2022). "Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281". Youtube.
 
Bibliography[edit]
Primary sources[edit]
  Banks, Iain M. (1987), Consider Phlebas, Orbit, ISBN  1-85723-138-4  .
 Banks, Iain M. (1988), The Player of Games, Orbit, ISBN  1-85723-146-5  .
 Banks, Iain M. (1991). The State of the Art. Orbit. ISBN  0-356-19669-0 ..
 Banks, Iain M. (1994-08-10). "A Few Notes on the Culture". Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written. Retrieved 2021-08-03..
 Banks, Iain M. (1996), Excession, Orbit, ISBN  1-85723-457-X  .
 Banks, Iain M. (1998), Inversions, Orbit, ISBN  1-85723-763-3  .
 Banks, Iain M. (2000), Look to Windward, Orbit, ISBN  1-85723-969-5  .
 Banks, Iain M. (2008), Matter, Orbit, ISBN  978-1-84149-417-3  .
 Banks, Iain M. (2010), Surface Detail, Orbit, p. 400, ISBN  978-1-84149-893-5  .
 Banks, Iain M. (2012), The Hydrogen Sonata, Orbit, ISBN  978-0356501505  . 
Secondary sources[edit]
  Brown, Carolyn (1996), "Utopias and Heterotopias: The 'Culture' of Iain M. Banks", in Littlewood, Derek; Stockwell, Peter (eds.), Impossibility Fiction, Rodopi, pp. 57–73, ISBN  90-420-0032-5 , retrieved 2021-08-02.
 Butler, Andrew M. (2003), "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the British Boom" (PDF), Science Fiction Studies, 30 (3): 374–393, JSTOR 4241200, retrieved 2021-08-04.
 Duggan, Robert (2007-12-22), "Iain M. Banks, Postmodernism and the Gulf War", Extrapolation, 48 (3): 558–577, doi:10.3828/extr.2007.48.3.12 .
 Hollinger, Veronica (1997), "Introducing Star Trek", Science Fiction Studies, 24 (2).
 Horwich, David (2002-01-21), "Culture Clash: Ambivalent Heroes and the Ambiguous Utopia in the Work of Iain M. Banks", Strange Horizons, retrieved 2021-08-03.
 Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus; Heilman, James (2008), "Outside Context Problems: Liberalism and the Other in the Work of Iain M.Banks", in Hassler, D.M.; Wilcox, C. (eds.), New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction, University of South Carolina Press, pp. 235–258, ISBN  978-1-57003-736-8 , retrieved 2008-12-09.
 Mendelsohn, Farah (2005), "Iain M.Banks: Excession", in Seed, David (ed.), A Companion to Science Fiction, Blackwell Publishing, pp. 556–566, ISBN  0470797010 , retrieved 2021-08-05.
 Palmer, Christopher (1999), "Galactic Empires and the Contemporary Extravaganza: Dan Simmons and Iain M. Banks", Science Fiction Studies, 26 (1), retrieved 2021-08-04.
 Stockwell, Stephen (2009).  Utopia and Apocalypse: Political Philosophy and American TV Series . APSA Conference. hdl:10072/31808. 
 Vint, Sherryl (2007),  Bodies of Tomorrow , University of Toronto Press, ISBN  978-0-8020-9052-2 , retrieved 2021-08-05.
 Westfahl, Gary (2003), "Space Opera", in James, Edward; Mendelsohn, Farah (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–208, ISBN  0-521-01657-6  . 
Interviews and reviews[edit]
  Allberry, Russ (2005-11-18), "Review: The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks", Eyrie, retrieved 2009-02-17.
 Baker, Neal (2003), "Review of Dark Light", in Butler, Andrew M.; Mendelsohn, Farah (eds.), The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod, Reading, UK: Science Fiction Foundation, pp. 95–97, ISBN  978-0903007023  .
 Gevers, Nick (2000),   Look To Windward (review) , retrieved 2009-02-15.
 Gevers, Nick (2002), "Cultured futurist Iain M. Banks creates an ornate utopia", SciFi.com, archived from the original on 2008-10-02, retrieved 2009-02-16.
 Holt, Tom (November 2007), "The Player of Games (review)" (PDF), SFX Magazine: 114, archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-10, retrieved 2009-02-17.
 Horton, Richard (1997-03-05),  Use of Weapons: Review , archived from the original on 2017-01-28, retrieved 2009-02-17.
  "Iain M Banks (interview)", The Guardian, 2000-09-11, retrieved 2021-08-05 
  "Interview with Iain M. Banks", SFF World, 1997-06-01, archived from the original on 2009-07-15, retrieved 2021-08-05 
 Johnson, Greg L. (2008), "Matter (review)", SF Site, retrieved 2021-08-04.
 Johnson, Greg L. (1998), "Excession (review)", SF Site, retrieved 2009-02-15.
 Langford, David (1998), "Iain M. Banks: Inversions", Ansible.uk, retrieved 2021-08-04.
 Lowe, Greg (2008-03-24), "Iain Banks – Interview", Spike Magazine, retrieved 2021-08-09.
 Mitchell, Chris (1996-09-03), "Iain Banks: Whit and Excession: Getting Used To Being God", Spike Magazine, retrieved 2021-08-04.
 Parsons, Michael (2010-10-14), "Interview: Iain M Banks talks 'Surface Detail' with Wired",  Wired , retrieved 2021-08-02.
 Poole, Steven (2008-02-09), "Culture Clashes: Review of Matter by Iain M. Banks", The Guardian, retrieved 2021-08-05.
  "Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010", Nonstop Press, 2012-05-05, archived from the original on 2013-04-26, retrieved 2013-05-17.
   A Quick Chat With Iain M. Banks , The Richmond Review, 1996, archived from the original on 2008-05-12, retrieved 2021-08-05.
 Shoul, Simeon (2001-08-01),   Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks (review) , retrieved 2021-08-04.
 Silver, Steven H. (2004-03-22),  SF Site: News , archived from the original on 2008-05-17, retrieved 2009-02-17.
 Sleight, Graham (2008-03-28),  Locus Magazine's Graham Sleight reviews Iain M. Banks , Locus Magazine, retrieved 2021-08-05 
 Walsh, Neil (2002), "Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001: Editors' Choice", SF Site, retrieved 2021-08-09.
 Wilson, Andrew (1994), "Iain Banks Interview", Textualities, retrieved 2009-02-17. 
News sources[edit]
  Ajami, Fouad; Cohen, Eliot A.; Huntington, Samuel P. (2009-01-14), "Samuel P. Huntington, 1927–2008", American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, archived from the original on 2009-04-18, retrieved 2009-02-17 
 Arevalo, Evelyn (2021-07-09), "Elon Musk Shows Off New SpaceX Falcon 9 Autonomous Droneship -'A Shortfall Of Gravitas'", Tesmanian .
 Cofield, Calla (2016-04-09), "SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First", Scientific American .
Culture series - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series
https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Byr_Genar-Hofoen
Byr Genar-Hofoen
2023-01-30
None
<div><div>
	<main>
	<div><p><b>Seddun-Braijsa Byr Fruel Genar-Hofoen dam Ois</b> was a citizen and ambassador of <a href="/wiki/The_Culture">The Culture</a>, specializing in exobiology. He represented The Culture to the <a href="/wiki/Affront">Affront</a>, seeming to be the first Culture ambassador to be able to appreciate their "barbaric" ways. 
</p><p>He was then called to steal the stored personality of Zreyn Tramow, captain of <a href="/wiki/GCU_Problem_Child">GCU Problem Child</a>, from <a href="/wiki/GSV_Sleeper_Service">GSV Sleeper Service</a>.
</p><p>He travelled the galaxy just to be reunited with his old lover <a href="/wiki/Dajeil_Gelian">Dajeil Gelian</a>, and in the end joined the Affront, now also in body.
</p>
<h2>References[]</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Excession_(novel)">Excession (novel)</a></li></ul>
</div>
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 Seddun-Braijsa Byr Fruel Genar-Hofoen dam Ois was a citizen and ambassador of The Culture, specializing in exobiology. He represented The Culture to the Affront, seeming to be the first Culture ambassador to be able to appreciate their "barbaric" ways.

 He was then called to steal the stored personality of Zreyn Tramow, captain of GCU Problem Child, from GSV Sleeper Service.

 He travelled the galaxy just to be reunited with his old lover Dajeil Gelian, and in the end joined the Affront, now also in body.

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Seddun-Braijsa Byr Fruel Genar-Hofoen dam Ois was a citizen and ambassador of The Culture, specializing in exobiology. He represented The Culture to the Affront, seeming to be the first Culture ambassador to be able to appreciate their "barbaric" ways. 
 He was then called to steal the stored personality of Zreyn Tramow, captain of GCU Problem Child, from GSV Sleeper Service.
 He travelled the galaxy just to be reunited with his old lover Dajeil Gelian, and in the end joined the Affront, now also in body.
References[]
  Excession (novel)
Byr Genar-Hofoen
https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Byr_Genar-Hofoen
https://www.theskinny.co.uk/books/features/the-culture-a-beginners-guide
The Culture: A Beginner's Guide | Books Feature | The Skinny
2012-10-31
Feature by Keir Hind
<div><div>
<h2>It's about time 'Scotland's Culture and Listings Magazine' considered The Culture. The fascinating society from Iain M Banks' series of science fiction novels, that is. It's been going for 25 years now, so here is a 25-point guide for beginners</h2>
<p>
</p>
</div><div>
<p>First, the basics. The Culture is Banks’ fictional intergalactic civilisation, and it can be vaguely described as an anarchist utopia in space. He’s published ten Culture books, beginning with <em>Consider Phlebas</em> in 1987, with the latest, <em>The Hydrogen Sonata</em>, hitting the shops right now. The books all take place in a shared Universe rather than forming a continuing story.</p>
<p>Banks notably writes all of his science fiction novels using the name Iain M Banks. The M stands for Menzies, which is his middle name. Sort of. Not on official documentation, because his dad somehow managed to leave it off the birth certificate, but the family continued using it in any case. Whatever this may say about naming law, it does seem appropriate that Banks publishes science fiction under  a non-existent name.</p>
<p>Gigantic trans-galactic civilisations are pretty common in sci-fi – see ‘The Empire’ in <em>Star Wars</em>. However, while the point of The Empire was effectively that it would get defeated in a final conflict (which involved lightning hands and teddy bears with spears, which seems odd looking back) The Culture is a permanent fixture. When he does Q&amp;A sessions, Banks is asked whether we’ll ever see a book that either describes the start  or end of The Culture, almost more than he’s asked ‘where do you get your ideas from’. His answer is the same: Nope. It’s here to stay, and he’s not going to be tempted to change that.</p>
<p>With that said, <em>Excession </em>(the fifth Culture book) depicts a situation where The Culture does come under threat when a mysterious, gigantic sphere appears on the edge of Culture Space, and appears to be older than the Universe. The Culture’s Minds investigate – and by ‘Minds’ we here mean the term used for the massive hyper-intelligent computers that usually inhabit their own spaceships, and play a large part in ‘governing’ The Culture, in as much as it is governed. This is as close, Banks has said, as he’s ever going to get to ending The Culture.<br/>Though The Culture novels are not one continuing saga, they do progress roughly chronologically. Each new book doesn’t always take place after all the others, but there’s been a rough and gradual, two steps forward, one step back kind of progression so far. So the fact that there have been five books written since <em>Excession </em>should hint at whether The Culture ended there or not.</p>
<p>The new Culture novel, <em>The Hydrogen Sonata</em>, does allude to the start and the end of intergalactic civilisations, when a civilisation called The Gzilt, that helped set up The Culture, but backed out of joining it in the end, decides to ‘sublime’, which is to ascend to another, formless, plane of existence. The Culture generally regards this step suspiciously – in fact, sci-fi in general views ‘subliming’ warily. David Tennant’s last episode of <em>Doctor Who</em> showed the Time Lords attempting to do this, but being stopped by The Doctor, because it would end time. This would make this a curiously mainstream suspicion.</p>
<p>The Gzilt decide to sublime by holding a referendum. The Culture novels haven’t alluded to contemporary politics in any specific way in the past, so this probably isn’t a comment on Scottish Independence. Probably.</p>
<p>The beginning of The Culture, for readers, was in <em>Consider Phlebas</em>, where the protagonist, Horza, is actually working against them. He’s a mercenary working for the Idirans, a competing, and religious, intergalactic civilisation The Culture is at war with. A curious way to begin the series, but the book is very accessible. It's often suggested that the second book, <em>The Player of Games</em>, is a better introduction to reading the series, but <em>Consider Phlebas</em> is greatly enjoyable and certainly no barrier to entry.</p>
<p><em>Consider Phlebas</em> includes descriptions of the relationships between people and computers in The Culture that are very important to the series as a whole. The Minds are of course massively more intelligent than individual people, but each sentient being is afforded the same rights. People are more numerous than Minds, though, and so the very intelligent amongst them can sometimes solve problems that elude The Minds, a process Banks describes as ‘sleight of neuron’. This annoys The Minds.</p>
<p>In broad terms, computer intelligence in science fiction either regards itself as beyond biological life forms and becomes antagonistic – see HAL9000 in <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em> – or runs everything and keeps people, like pets. The Culture bridges this gap with Minds that have individual personalities, often of the rational humanist type, and who have decided to value biological beings with sentient minds. More than just value, they get on with people, people get on with them, and so it goes in The Culture.</p>
<p>‘People’ are not earth-humans as such, but humanoid beings. The differences from earth-humans are that humanoid citizens of The Culture have evolved themselves biologically. They now have better sex lives, they have improved immune systems to the point where they can re-grow severed limbs, they can produce their own (potent, but non-addictive) drugs through glands in their body, and they can even change sex at will, though that does take time.</p>
<p>Gurgeh, the title character and protagonist of <em>The Player of Games</em> has never changed sex, which is considered slightly unusual. However, he’s a genius at the sort of strategy games Banks likes to play, and occasionally write about – a game called <em>Damage </em>features in <em>Consider Phlebas</em>, and crossing over to Bank’s ‘straight’ books, Cameron Colley in <em>Complicity </em>is hooked on a computer game called <em>Despot</em>, which is basically <em>Civilisation 2</em>, which Banks was addicted to at one point. This is why Gurgeh is recruited for a special mission to a games-obsessed planet.</p>
<p>Who recruits Gurgeh? The Culture has an agency of sorts called Contact, which deals with contacting other, usually slightly less advanced, civilisations, to see if they want to assimilate with The Culture. Usually they do. A more extreme branch of Contact is Special Circumstances, who play a large part in Banks’s novels, though they’re only a small part of The Culture as a whole.</p>
<p>Banks has said that since The Culture is so balanced a society, it wouldn’t be that interesting to set a book inside its heart, because there’s not enough conflict. So the books tend to be about the periphery of The Culture, and usually involve Contact, and Special Circumstances.</p>
<p><em>Inversions </em>is only debatably a Culture Novel, because the Culture is only alluded to. The book is set on an alien planet that The Culture, and almost certainly Special Circumstances, is involved with, but it’s not explicit how or why they’re doing this, in a way that makes it possible to read the book without noticing The Culture at all. It remains a good book, but it’s not the one to start with if you want to get into the Culture Novels.</p>
<p>A book that is undeniably a Culture Novel is <em>Matter</em>, which builds up to a specific Special Circumstances mission to the centre of a shell world, a planet with many different levels inside, which is good for dramatic tension. This said, Banks' notion that only the periphery of The Culture is dramatically interesting is a good working approach, but I’m going to say he’s wrong.</p>
<p>Any time his novels reference events in The Culture itself, they’re pretty fascinating – in <em>The Player of Games</em> Gurgeh has an old cast-iron cannon that he fires into a nearby lake, largely just because he can, which is pretty appealing. In <em>Surface Detail</em>, there’s an account of Culture citizens realising they can fix up anti-gravity oxygen bubbles to… well, anything they want, and then fly, for example, houses around in space. Also pretty appealing.</p>
<p>All of this lovely nonsense is completely justifiable by the fact that The Culture is a post-scarcity society. Meaning they’ve discovered how to produce matter and energy, so it won’t ever run out. That’s quite necessary for utopian conditions. It also means The Culture has abandoned living on planets, preferring instead to construct Orbitals, gigantic structures that run round the entire orbit of a star. They’re mostly geo-formed to be covered in earth-like terrain too, rather than being cold, metal, constructs.</p>
<p>At the start of the Idiran War, the Idirans unexpectedly attacked The Culture by destroying enough of some Orbitals to loosen the rest of the structures, which then went flying through space, killing the people on them, who didn't expect these kinds of attacks. This is one disadvantage of living in such an advanced society.</p>
<p>The Culture’s advanced technology and intelligence eventually engineers a complete victory over the Idirans. This is one advantage of living in such an advanced society. In <em>Look to Windward</em> – which is related to <em>Consider Phlebas</em> in that it concerns this war, and in that both titles come from Eliot’s <em>The Waste Land –</em> one of the major characters is composing music to commemorate the anniversary of the war’s end.</p>
<p>The Minds don’t compose music; if they did, it’d be much too incredibly perfect. And so they’re not allowed to, by common consensus. This said, the Minds are fully formed personalities, and they, like the rest of the Culture, do pursue fun. They just don’t do it in ways that would detract from the endeavours of other Culture citizens.</p>
<p>An idea of how much of a sense of humour Banks ascribes to the Minds can be seen in the names they choose for their own spaceships. These names are justly admired by the readers of The Culture novels. Some examples are the ships <em>Pure Big Mad Boat Man, Poke It With A Stick, No More Mr Nice Guy, Just Read The Instructions, Of Course I Still Love You, Very Little Gravitas Indeed, Well I Was In The Neighbourhood, Appeal To Reason, Anything Legal Considered, </em>and the very in-jokey<em> Eight Rounds Rapid. </em><em>Very In-Jokey</em> could be a ship name in itself.</p>
<p>A debatable point, but let’s go for it: Banks’ Culture, and sci-fi novels as a whole have been more consistently excellent than his ‘straight’ novels. A theory I’ll advance is that his ‘normal’ books have had greater highs as well as greater lows, but the space-based tales have definitely achieved a higher average. Well, kind of sort of definitely (another ship name there). Feel free to read them and argue the point. </p>
<p>
 The Hydrogen Sonata is out now, published by Orbit, cover price Â£20
Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, The State of the Art, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter and Surface Detail are also all still available, at various prices
 </p>
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 The Culture: A Beginner's Guide

 It's about time 'Scotland's Culture and Listings Magazine' considered The Culture. The fascinating society from Iain M Banks' series of science fiction novels, that is. It's been going for 25 years now, so here is a 25-point guide for beginners

 Feature by Keir Hind | 31 Oct 2012

 First, the basics. The Culture is Banks’ fictional intergalactic civilisation, and it can be vaguely described as an anarchist utopia in space. He’s published ten Culture books, beginning with Consider Phlebas in 1987, with the latest, The Hydrogen Sonata, hitting the shops right now. The books all take place in a shared Universe rather than forming a continuing story.

 Banks notably writes all of his science fiction novels using the name Iain M Banks. The M stands for Menzies, which is his middle name. Sort of. Not on official documentation, because his dad somehow managed to leave it off the birth certificate, but the family continued using it in any case. Whatever this may say about naming law, it does seem appropriate that Banks publishes science fiction under a non-existent name.

 Gigantic trans-galactic civilisations are pretty common in sci-fi – see ‘The Empire’ in Star Wars. However, while the point of The Empire was effectively that it would get defeated in a final conflict (which involved lightning hands and teddy bears with spears, which seems odd looking back) The Culture is a permanent fixture. When he does Q&A sessions, Banks is asked whether we’ll ever see a book that either describes the start or end of The Culture, almost more than he’s asked ‘where do you get your ideas from’. His answer is the same: Nope. It’s here to stay, and he’s not going to be tempted to change that.

 With that said, Excession (the fifth Culture book) depicts a situation where The Culture does come under threat when a mysterious, gigantic sphere appears on the edge of Culture Space, and appears to be older than the Universe. The Culture’s Minds investigate – and by ‘Minds’ we here mean the term used for the massive hyper-intelligent computers that usually inhabit their own spaceships, and play a large part in ‘governing’ The Culture, in as much as it is governed. This is as close, Banks has said, as he’s ever going to get to ending The Culture.
 Though The Culture novels are not one continuing saga, they do progress roughly chronologically. Each new book doesn’t always take place after all the others, but there’s been a rough and gradual, two steps forward, one step back kind of progression so far. So the fact that there have been five books written since Excession should hint at whether The Culture ended there or not.

 The new Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, does allude to the start and the end of intergalactic civilisations, when a civilisation called The Gzilt, that helped set up The Culture, but backed out of joining it in the end, decides to ‘sublime’, which is to ascend to another, formless, plane of existence. The Culture generally regards this step suspiciously – in fact, sci-fi in general views ‘subliming’ warily. David Tennant’s last episode of Doctor Who showed the Time Lords attempting to do this, but being stopped by The Doctor, because it would end time. This would make this a curiously mainstream suspicion.

 The Gzilt decide to sublime by holding a referendum. The Culture novels haven’t alluded to contemporary politics in any specific way in the past, so this probably isn’t a comment on Scottish Independence. Probably.

 The beginning of The Culture, for readers, was in Consider Phlebas, where the protagonist, Horza, is actually working against them. He’s a mercenary working for the Idirans, a competing, and religious, intergalactic civilisation The Culture is at war with. A curious way to begin the series, but the book is very accessible. It's often suggested that the second book, The Player of Games, is a better introduction to reading the series, but Consider Phlebas is greatly enjoyable and certainly no barrier to entry.

 Consider Phlebas includes descriptions of the relationships between people and computers in The Culture that are very important to the series as a whole. The Minds are of course massively more intelligent than individual people, but each sentient being is afforded the same rights. People are more numerous than Minds, though, and so the very intelligent amongst them can sometimes solve problems that elude The Minds, a process Banks describes as ‘sleight of neuron’. This annoys The Minds.

 In broad terms, computer intelligence in science fiction either regards itself as beyond biological life forms and becomes antagonistic – see HAL9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey – or runs everything and keeps people, like pets. The Culture bridges this gap with Minds that have individual personalities, often of the rational humanist type, and who have decided to value biological beings with sentient minds. More than just value, they get on with people, people get on with them, and so it goes in The Culture.

 ‘People’ are not earth-humans as such, but humanoid beings. The differences from earth-humans are that humanoid citizens of The Culture have evolved themselves biologically. They now have better sex lives, they have improved immune systems to the point where they can re-grow severed limbs, they can produce their own (potent, but non-addictive) drugs through glands in their body, and they can even change sex at will, though that does take time.

 Gurgeh, the title character and protagonist of The Player of Games has never changed sex, which is considered slightly unusual. However, he’s a genius at the sort of strategy games Banks likes to play, and occasionally write about – a game called Damage features in Consider Phlebas, and crossing over to Bank’s ‘straight’ books, Cameron Colley in Complicity is hooked on a computer game called Despot, which is basically Civilisation 2, which Banks was addicted to at one point. This is why Gurgeh is recruited for a special mission to a games-obsessed planet.

 Who recruits Gurgeh? The Culture has an agency of sorts called Contact, which deals with contacting other, usually slightly less advanced, civilisations, to see if they want to assimilate with The Culture. Usually they do. A more extreme branch of Contact is Special Circumstances, who play a large part in Banks’s novels, though they’re only a small part of The Culture as a whole.

 Banks has said that since The Culture is so balanced a society, it wouldn’t be that interesting to set a book inside its heart, because there’s not enough conflict. So the books tend to be about the periphery of The Culture, and usually involve Contact, and Special Circumstances.

 Inversions is only debatably a Culture Novel, because the Culture is only alluded to. The book is set on an alien planet that The Culture, and almost certainly Special Circumstances, is involved with, but it’s not explicit how or why they’re doing this, in a way that makes it possible to read the book without noticing The Culture at all. It remains a good book, but it’s not the one to start with if you want to get into the Culture Novels.

 A book that is undeniably a Culture Novel is Matter, which builds up to a specific Special Circumstances mission to the centre of a shell world, a planet with many different levels inside, which is good for dramatic tension. This said, Banks' notion that only the periphery of The Culture is dramatically interesting is a good working approach, but I’m going to say he’s wrong.

 Any time his novels reference events in The Culture itself, they’re pretty fascinating – in The Player of Games Gurgeh has an old cast-iron cannon that he fires into a nearby lake, largely just because he can, which is pretty appealing. In Surface Detail, there’s an account of Culture citizens realising they can fix up anti-gravity oxygen bubbles to… well, anything they want, and then fly, for example, houses around in space. Also pretty appealing.

 All of this lovely nonsense is completely justifiable by the fact that The Culture is a post-scarcity society. Meaning they’ve discovered how to produce matter and energy, so it won’t ever run out. That’s quite necessary for utopian conditions. It also means The Culture has abandoned living on planets, preferring instead to construct Orbitals, gigantic structures that run round the entire orbit of a star. They’re mostly geo-formed to be covered in earth-like terrain too, rather than being cold, metal, constructs.

 At the start of the Idiran War, the Idirans unexpectedly attacked The Culture by destroying enough of some Orbitals to loosen the rest of the structures, which then went flying through space, killing the people on them, who didn't expect these kinds of attacks. This is one disadvantage of living in such an advanced society.

 The Culture’s advanced technology and intelligence eventually engineers a complete victory over the Idirans. This is one advantage of living in such an advanced society. In Look to Windward – which is related to Consider Phlebas in that it concerns this war, and in that both titles come from Eliot’s The Waste Land – one of the major characters is composing music to commemorate the anniversary of the war’s end.

 The Minds don’t compose music; if they did, it’d be much too incredibly perfect. And so they’re not allowed to, by common consensus. This said, the Minds are fully formed personalities, and they, like the rest of the Culture, do pursue fun. They just don’t do it in ways that would detract from the endeavours of other Culture citizens.

 An idea of how much of a sense of humour Banks ascribes to the Minds can be seen in the names they choose for their own spaceships. These names are justly admired by the readers of The Culture novels. Some examples are the ships Pure Big Mad Boat Man, Poke It With A Stick, No More Mr Nice Guy, Just Read The Instructions, Of Course I Still Love You, Very Little Gravitas Indeed, Well I Was In The Neighbourhood, Appeal To Reason, Anything Legal Considered, and the very in-jokey Eight Rounds Rapid. Very In-Jokey could be a ship name in itself.

 A debatable point, but let’s go for it: Banks’ Culture, and sci-fi novels as a whole have been more consistently excellent than his ‘straight’ novels. A theory I’ll advance is that his ‘normal’ books have had greater highs as well as greater lows, but the space-based tales have definitely achieved a higher average. Well, kind of sort of definitely (another ship name there). Feel free to read them and argue the point.

 The Hydrogen Sonata is out now, published by Orbit, cover price Â£20 Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, The State of the Art, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter and Surface Detail are also all still available, at various prices
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It's about time 'Scotland's Culture and Listings Magazine' considered The Culture. The fascinating society from Iain M Banks' series of science fiction novels, that is. It's been going for 25 years now, so here is a 25-point guide for beginners
 
First, the basics. The Culture is Banks’ fictional intergalactic civilisation, and it can be vaguely described as an anarchist utopia in space. He’s published ten Culture books, beginning with Consider Phlebas in 1987, with the latest, The Hydrogen Sonata, hitting the shops right now. The books all take place in a shared Universe rather than forming a continuing story.
Banks notably writes all of his science fiction novels using the name Iain M Banks. The M stands for Menzies, which is his middle name. Sort of. Not on official documentation, because his dad somehow managed to leave it off the birth certificate, but the family continued using it in any case. Whatever this may say about naming law, it does seem appropriate that Banks publishes science fiction under  a non-existent name.
Gigantic trans-galactic civilisations are pretty common in sci-fi – see ‘The Empire’ in Star Wars. However, while the point of The Empire was effectively that it would get defeated in a final conflict (which involved lightning hands and teddy bears with spears, which seems odd looking back) The Culture is a permanent fixture. When he does Q&amp;A sessions, Banks is asked whether we’ll ever see a book that either describes the start  or end of The Culture, almost more than he’s asked ‘where do you get your ideas from’. His answer is the same: Nope. It’s here to stay, and he’s not going to be tempted to change that.
With that said, Excession (the fifth Culture book) depicts a situation where The Culture does come under threat when a mysterious, gigantic sphere appears on the edge of Culture Space, and appears to be older than the Universe. The Culture’s Minds investigate – and by ‘Minds’ we here mean the term used for the massive hyper-intelligent computers that usually inhabit their own spaceships, and play a large part in ‘governing’ The Culture, in as much as it is governed. This is as close, Banks has said, as he’s ever going to get to ending The Culture.Though The Culture novels are not one continuing saga, they do progress roughly chronologically. Each new book doesn’t always take place after all the others, but there’s been a rough and gradual, two steps forward, one step back kind of progression so far. So the fact that there have been five books written since Excession should hint at whether The Culture ended there or not.
The new Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, does allude to the start and the end of intergalactic civilisations, when a civilisation called The Gzilt, that helped set up The Culture, but backed out of joining it in the end, decides to ‘sublime’, which is to ascend to another, formless, plane of existence. The Culture generally regards this step suspiciously – in fact, sci-fi in general views ‘subliming’ warily. David Tennant’s last episode of Doctor Who showed the Time Lords attempting to do this, but being stopped by The Doctor, because it would end time. This would make this a curiously mainstream suspicion.
The Gzilt decide to sublime by holding a referendum. The Culture novels haven’t alluded to contemporary politics in any specific way in the past, so this probably isn’t a comment on Scottish Independence. Probably.
The beginning of The Culture, for readers, was in Consider Phlebas, where the protagonist, Horza, is actually working against them. He’s a mercenary working for the Idirans, a competing, and religious, intergalactic civilisation The Culture is at war with. A curious way to begin the series, but the book is very accessible. It's often suggested that the second book, The Player of Games, is a better introduction to reading the series, but Consider Phlebas is greatly enjoyable and certainly no barrier to entry.
 Consider Phlebas includes descriptions of the relationships between people and computers in The Culture that are very important to the series as a whole. The Minds are of course massively more intelligent than individual people, but each sentient being is afforded the same rights. People are more numerous than Minds, though, and so the very intelligent amongst them can sometimes solve problems that elude The Minds, a process Banks describes as ‘sleight of neuron’. This annoys The Minds.
In broad terms, computer intelligence in science fiction either regards itself as beyond biological life forms and becomes antagonistic – see HAL9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey – or runs everything and keeps people, like pets. The Culture bridges this gap with Minds that have individual personalities, often of the rational humanist type, and who have decided to value biological beings with sentient minds. More than just value, they get on with people, people get on with them, and so it goes in The Culture.
‘People’ are not earth-humans as such, but humanoid beings. The differences from earth-humans are that humanoid citizens of The Culture have evolved themselves biologically. They now have better sex lives, they have improved immune systems to the point where they can re-grow severed limbs, they can produce their own (potent, but non-addictive) drugs through glands in their body, and they can even change sex at will, though that does take time.
Gurgeh, the title character and protagonist of The Player of Games has never changed sex, which is considered slightly unusual. However, he’s a genius at the sort of strategy games Banks likes to play, and occasionally write about – a game called Damage features in Consider Phlebas, and crossing over to Bank’s ‘straight’ books, Cameron Colley in Complicity is hooked on a computer game called Despot, which is basically Civilisation 2, which Banks was addicted to at one point. This is why Gurgeh is recruited for a special mission to a games-obsessed planet.
Who recruits Gurgeh? The Culture has an agency of sorts called Contact, which deals with contacting other, usually slightly less advanced, civilisations, to see if they want to assimilate with The Culture. Usually they do. A more extreme branch of Contact is Special Circumstances, who play a large part in Banks’s novels, though they’re only a small part of The Culture as a whole.
Banks has said that since The Culture is so balanced a society, it wouldn’t be that interesting to set a book inside its heart, because there’s not enough conflict. So the books tend to be about the periphery of The Culture, and usually involve Contact, and Special Circumstances.
 Inversions is only debatably a Culture Novel, because the Culture is only alluded to. The book is set on an alien planet that The Culture, and almost certainly Special Circumstances, is involved with, but it’s not explicit how or why they’re doing this, in a way that makes it possible to read the book without noticing The Culture at all. It remains a good book, but it’s not the one to start with if you want to get into the Culture Novels.
A book that is undeniably a Culture Novel is Matter, which builds up to a specific Special Circumstances mission to the centre of a shell world, a planet with many different levels inside, which is good for dramatic tension. This said, Banks' notion that only the periphery of The Culture is dramatically interesting is a good working approach, but I’m going to say he’s wrong.
Any time his novels reference events in The Culture itself, they’re pretty fascinating – in The Player of Games Gurgeh has an old cast-iron cannon that he fires into a nearby lake, largely just because he can, which is pretty appealing. In Surface Detail, there’s an account of Culture citizens realising they can fix up anti-gravity oxygen bubbles to… well, anything they want, and then fly, for example, houses around in space. Also pretty appealing.
All of this lovely nonsense is completely justifiable by the fact that The Culture is a post-scarcity society. Meaning they’ve discovered how to produce matter and energy, so it won’t ever run out. That’s quite necessary for utopian conditions. It also means The Culture has abandoned living on planets, preferring instead to construct Orbitals, gigantic structures that run round the entire orbit of a star. They’re mostly geo-formed to be covered in earth-like terrain too, rather than being cold, metal, constructs.
At the start of the Idiran War, the Idirans unexpectedly attacked The Culture by destroying enough of some Orbitals to loosen the rest of the structures, which then went flying through space, killing the people on them, who didn't expect these kinds of attacks. This is one disadvantage of living in such an advanced society.
The Culture’s advanced technology and intelligence eventually engineers a complete victory over the Idirans. This is one advantage of living in such an advanced society. In Look to Windward – which is related to Consider Phlebas in that it concerns this war, and in that both titles come from Eliot’s The Waste Land – one of the major characters is composing music to commemorate the anniversary of the war’s end.
The Minds don’t compose music; if they did, it’d be much too incredibly perfect. And so they’re not allowed to, by common consensus. This said, the Minds are fully formed personalities, and they, like the rest of the Culture, do pursue fun. They just don’t do it in ways that would detract from the endeavours of other Culture citizens.
An idea of how much of a sense of humour Banks ascribes to the Minds can be seen in the names they choose for their own spaceships. These names are justly admired by the readers of The Culture novels. Some examples are the ships Pure Big Mad Boat Man, Poke It With A Stick, No More Mr Nice Guy, Just Read The Instructions, Of Course I Still Love You, Very Little Gravitas Indeed, Well I Was In The Neighbourhood, Appeal To Reason, Anything Legal Considered, and the very in-jokey Eight Rounds Rapid.  Very In-Jokey could be a ship name in itself.
A debatable point, but let’s go for it: Banks’ Culture, and sci-fi novels as a whole have been more consistently excellent than his ‘straight’ novels. A theory I’ll advance is that his ‘normal’ books have had greater highs as well as greater lows, but the space-based tales have definitely achieved a higher average. Well, kind of sort of definitely (another ship name there). Feel free to read them and argue the point. 
 The Hydrogen Sonata is out now, published by Orbit, cover price Â£20
Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, The State of the Art, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter and Surface Detail are also all still available, at various prices
The Culture: A Beginner's Guide | Books Feature | The Skinny
https://www.theskinny.co.uk/books/features/the-culture-a-beginners-guide
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2017/11/reading-order-of-culture-novels-updated.html
Reading order of the Culture novels (updated)
2017-11-10
Adam Whitehead
<div><div><p>
Back in 2009 <a href="http://thewertzone.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/reading-order-of-culture-novels.html">I published a reading order</a> to the <b>Culture</b> novels of Iain M. Banks. Sadly, Iain is no longer with us, meaning that the <b>Culture</b> series is effectively complete, so now a final order can be given.</p><p>
As always, it's worth remembering the following:</p><p>
It Doesn't Really Matter<br />
The Culture novels are all stand-alone stories separated from one another by decades and centuries of time and thousands of light-years of space, so you can pretty much read them in whatever order you wish.</p><p>
<a href="//3.bp.blogspot.com/_SniTwfm5BwE/SbRvCXDrqhI/AAAAAAAAA7E/F8k4xRP718o/s1600-h/UseofWeaponsOriginal.jpg"></a><br />
<br />
Publication Order<br />
That said, publication order probably makes the most sense, due to the (very) minor and occasional reference in one book to the events of another. This is the order the books were published in:<br /></p><ol>
<li>Consider Phlebas (1987)</li>
<li>The Player of Games (1988)</li>
<li>Use of Weapons (1990)</li>
<li>The State of the Art (1991)</li>
<li>Excession (1996)</li>
<li>Inversions (1998)</li>
<li>Look to Windward (2000)</li>
<li>Matter (2008)</li>
<li><i>Surface Detail</i> (2010)</li>
<li><i>The Hydrogen Sonata</i> (2012)</li>
</ol>
<p><br />Chronological Order<br />
I don't recommend the chronological order, since I don't think Banks was paying enormous attention to this when writing the books. For example, Excession (which is set 400 years after Consider Phlebas) has a clear reference to the events of The Player of Games, but the latter novel is set well over 700 years after Consider Phlebas, which is a clear discrepancy. Still, for the curious, the order the books apparently takes place in is as follows:</p><ol>
<li>Consider Phlebas (1331 AD)</li>
<li>Excession (c. 1867)</li>
<li>Matter (c. 1890)</li>
<li>The State of the Art (1977)</li>
<li>The Player of Games (c. 2085)</li>
<li>Use of Weapons (2092)</li>
<li>Look to Windward (c. 2170)</li>
<li><i>The Hydrogen Sonata</i> (c. 2375)</li>
<li><i>Surface Detail</i> (c. 2767)</li>
</ol><p>
Note that The State of the Art refers to the titular novella of the collection, not the other two Culture stories in the book. I could be wrong (not having read them yet), but I believe the other two stories and Inversions lack any information that can be used to reliably date them at all.</p><p>
Note on the Dates Above<br /><br />
The appendix to Consider Phlebas gives the date for the beginning of the Idiran War as 1327 AD and the book takes place four years later. The war ends in 1375. Excession takes place 500 years after the war ends. Matter takes place over twenty years after the Sleeper Service vanishes (which happens at the end of Excession). The State of the Art features a Contact group surveying Earth in 1977. One of the same characters turns up in Use of Weapons 115 years after the mission to Earth. One of the ships in The Player of Games is 716 years old and was built at the end of the Idiran War (so near the end it never engaged in combat with the enemy). Look to Windward takes place 803 years after the Twin Novae Battle, one of the final space battles of the Idiran War. <i>The Hydrogen Sonata</i> takes place 1,000 years after the end of the Idiran War in <i>Consider Phlebas</i>. <i>Surface Detail</i> takes place 600 years after the events of <i>Look to Windward</i> but about 1,500 years after the end of the Idiran War; this may be a simple rounding error.</p><p>
According to Consider Phlebas' appendix, the Culture contacts Earth some time around 2100 AD. Earth joins the Culture but never really amounts to much as a member.</p>
<br />
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 SF&F In Print & On Screen

 Friday, 10 November 2017

 Reading order of the Culture novels (updated)

 Back in 2009 I published a reading order to the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks. Sadly, Iain is no longer with us, meaning that the Culture series is effectively complete, so now a final order can be given.

 As always, it's worth remembering the following:

 It Doesn't Really Matter
 The Culture novels are all stand-alone stories separated from one another by decades and centuries of time and thousands of light-years of space, so you can pretty much read them in whatever order you wish.



 Publication Order
 That said, publication order probably makes the most sense, due to the (very) minor and occasional reference in one book to the events of another. This is the order the books were published in:

 1. Consider Phlebas (1987)
 2. The Player of Games (1988)
 3. Use of Weapons (1990)
 4. The State of the Art (1991)
 5. Excession (1996)
 6. Inversions (1998)
 7. Look to Windward (2000)
 8. Matter (2008)
 9. Surface Detail (2010)
 10. The Hydrogen Sonata (2012)

 Chronological Order
 I don't recommend the chronological order, since I don't think Banks was paying enormous attention to this when writing the books. For example, Excession (which is set 400 years after Consider Phlebas ) has a clear reference to the events of The Player of Games , but the latter novel is set well over 700 years after Consider Phlebas , which is a clear discrepancy. Still, for the curious, the order the books apparently takes place in is as follows:
 1. Consider Phlebas (1331 AD)
 2. Excession (c. 1867)
 3. Matter (c. 1890)
 4. The State of the Art (1977)
 5. The Player of Games (c. 2085)
 6. Use of Weapons (2092)
 7. Look to Windward (c. 2170)
 8. The Hydrogen Sonata (c. 2375)
 9. Surface Detail (c. 2767)
 Note that The State of the Art refers to the titular novella of the collection, not the other two Culture stories in the book. I could be wrong (not having read them yet), but I believe the other two stories and Inversions lack any information that can be used to reliably date them at all.


 Note on the Dates Above

 The appendix to Consider Phlebas gives the date for the beginning of the Idiran War as 1327 AD and the book takes place four years later. The war ends in 1375. Excession takes place 500 years after the war ends. Matter takes place over twenty years after the Sleeper Service vanishes (which happens at the end of Excession ). The State of the Art features a Contact group surveying Earth in 1977. One of the same characters turns up in Use of Weapons 115 years after the mission to Earth. One of the ships in The Player of Games is 716 years old and was built at the end of the Idiran War (so near the end it never engaged in combat with the enemy). Look to Windward takes place 803 years after the Twin Novae Battle, one of the final space battles of the Idiran War. The Hydrogen Sonata takes place 1,000 years after the end of the Idiran War in Consider Phlebas. Surface Detail takes place 600 years after the events of Look to Windward but about 1,500 years after the end of the Idiran War; this may be a simple rounding error.

 According to Consider Phlebas ' appendix, the Culture contacts Earth some time around 2100 AD. Earth joins the Culture but never really amounts to much as a member.



  Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs. The Cities of Fantasy series is debuting on my Patreon feed and you can read it there one month before being published on the Wertzone.
 Posted by Adam Whitehead at 13:57
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 Labels: iain m. banks , the culture , timeline

 4 comments:

 FFP said...

 Thanks for this.
 I am rationing myself to three a year.

 20 November 2019 at 20:39:00 GMT
 Unknown said...

 I don't ration myself - I just read them over and over again. Marvellous stories.

 22 May 2021 at 03:29:00 GMT
 Unknown said...

 Great ordering! One thing though, the story The State of the Art was first published in 1989 and later collected into the collection The State of the Art in 1991. So, technically it was published before Use of Weapons.

 2 August 2021 at 16:25:00 GMT
 KennyF said...

 Good list! One of the short stories in State of the Art is set during the Idiran War... potentially prior to the events of Consider Phlebas.
 Also, in Inversions, when DeWar is asked if there are any wars in the 'land of Lavishia' he says "no" or "only very small, very far away wars."
 Could this mean the Idiran War hadn't taken place before he left the Culture?

 1 May 2022 at 14:36:00 GMT

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Back in 2009 I published a reading order to the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks. Sadly, Iain is no longer with us, meaning that the Culture series is effectively complete, so now a final order can be given. 
As always, it's worth remembering the following: 
It Doesn't Really Matter
The Culture novels are all stand-alone stories separated from one another by decades and centuries of time and thousands of light-years of space, so you can pretty much read them in whatever order you wish. 
  
Publication Order
That said, publication order probably makes the most sense, due to the (very) minor and occasional reference in one book to the events of another. This is the order the books were published in:  
Consider Phlebas (1987)
The Player of Games (1988)
Use of Weapons (1990)
The State of the Art (1991)
Excession (1996)
Inversions (1998)
Look to Windward (2000)
Matter (2008)
 Surface Detail (2010)
 The Hydrogen Sonata (2012)
 Chronological Order
I don't recommend the chronological order, since I don't think Banks was paying enormous attention to this when writing the books. For example, Excession (which is set 400 years after Consider Phlebas) has a clear reference to the events of The Player of Games, but the latter novel is set well over 700 years after Consider Phlebas, which is a clear discrepancy. Still, for the curious, the order the books apparently takes place in is as follows: 
Consider Phlebas (1331 AD)
Excession (c. 1867)
Matter (c. 1890)
The State of the Art (1977)
The Player of Games (c. 2085)
Use of Weapons (2092)
Look to Windward (c. 2170)
 The Hydrogen Sonata (c. 2375)
 Surface Detail (c. 2767)
 
Note that The State of the Art refers to the titular novella of the collection, not the other two Culture stories in the book. I could be wrong (not having read them yet), but I believe the other two stories and Inversions lack any information that can be used to reliably date them at all. 
Note on the Dates Above 
The appendix to Consider Phlebas gives the date for the beginning of the Idiran War as 1327 AD and the book takes place four years later. The war ends in 1375. Excession takes place 500 years after the war ends. Matter takes place over twenty years after the Sleeper Service vanishes (which happens at the end of Excession). The State of the Art features a Contact group surveying Earth in 1977. One of the same characters turns up in Use of Weapons 115 years after the mission to Earth. One of the ships in The Player of Games is 716 years old and was built at the end of the Idiran War (so near the end it never engaged in combat with the enemy). Look to Windward takes place 803 years after the Twin Novae Battle, one of the final space battles of the Idiran War. The Hydrogen Sonata takes place 1,000 years after the end of the Idiran War in Consider Phlebas. Surface Detail takes place 600 years after the events of Look to Windward but about 1,500 years after the end of the Idiran War; this may be a simple rounding error. 
According to Consider Phlebas' appendix, the Culture contacts Earth some time around 2100 AD. Earth joins the Culture but never really amounts to much as a member.
 Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs. The Cities of Fantasy series is debuting on my Patreon feed and you can read it there one month before being published on the Wertzone.
Reading order of the Culture novels (updated)
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2017/11/reading-order-of-culture-novels-updated.html
https://blog.whiskyvangoghgo.com/post/32741854881/what-is-your-culture-name
What is your Culture name?
2012-10-02
Whiskyvangoghgo
<div><div><p>What is your Culture name?</p><div><p>In honor of the new Iain Banks Culture novel, <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FThe-Hydrogen-Sonata-Iain-Banks%2Fdp%2F0316212377&amp;t=Mzc3MWFjMDdkZTZlYWExM2Y1ZWJmMTRmMWQwMmY5MDg4MDMzNjlhYywyTjdoM2ZxMg%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3A_UP3MM4nE0a-XT5eu8t3ig&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.whiskyvangoghgo.com%2Fpost%2F32741854881%2Fwhat-is-your-culture-name&amp;m=1&amp;ts=1675805186">The Hydrogen Sonata</a>, I want to make #culturenames a trending topic in Twitter!</p><p><a href="https://href.li/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series">Culture ship names</a> get a lot of attention, but the nature of citizen names is also plenty interesting. The approximate pattern, as <a href="https://href.li/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Names">per wikipedia</a>:</p><ul><li>an amalgamation of planetary system and object (in our case, something to the effect of Sun-Earther)</li><li>given name</li><li>chosen name (“Morat” in Jeunet Morat Gurgeh of <em>Player of Games</em> translates to “player of games”)</li><li>surname (usually but not necessarily mother’s maiden name)</li><li>house or estate one was raised in</li></ul><p>Iain Banks identified his name as “sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry”. I’m going to be a little fancier and go with “Sol-Terrasa Eric <a href="https://href.li/?http://www.mysticvoodoo.com/ogun.htm">Ogun</a> Laker dam <a href="https://href.li/?http://www.yavapai.us">Yavapai</a>”.</p><p>What is your Culture name? Tweet it with the hash tag <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23culturenames/">#culturenames</a></p></div><a href="https://blog.whiskyvangoghgo.com/post/32741854881/what-is-your-culture-name"></a></div>||||I||||Whisky Van Gogh Go

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 What is your Culture name?

 In honor of the new Iain Banks Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, I want to make #culturenames a trending topic in Twitter!

 Culture ship names get a lot of attention, but the nature of citizen names is also plenty interesting. The approximate pattern, as per wikipedia:

 * an amalgamation of planetary system and object (in our case, something to the effect of Sun-Earther)
 * given name
 * chosen name (“Morat” in Jeunet Morat Gurgeh of Player of Games translates to “player of games”)
 * surname (usually but not necessarily mother’s maiden name)
 * house or estate one was raised in

 Iain Banks identified his name as “sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry”. I’m going to be a little fancier and go with “Sol-Terrasa Eric Ogun Laker dam Yavapai”.

 What is your Culture name? Tweet it with the hash tag #culturenames

 Posted 10 years ago
 6 notes
 1. bdc-blog liked this
 2. whiskyvangoghgo posted this
What is your Culture name?  In honor of the new Iain Banks Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, I want to make #culturenames a trending topic in Twitter!  Culture ship names get a lot of attention, but the nature of citizen names is also plenty interesting. The approximate pattern, as per wikipedia:  an amalgamation of planetary system and object (in our case, something to the effect of Sun-Earther) given name chosen name (“Morat” in Jeunet Morat Gurgeh of Player of Games translates to “player of games”) surname (usually but not necessarily mother’s maiden name) house or estate one was raised in  Iain Banks identified his name as “sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry”. I’m going to be a little fancier and go with “Sol-Terrasa Eric Ogun Laker dam Yavapai”. What is your Culture name? Tweet it with the hash tag #culturenames
What is your Culture name?
https://blog.whiskyvangoghgo.com/post/32741854881/what-is-your-culture-name
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/09/prweb14728854.htm
New Novel Explores How Culture Impacts Morals
2017-09-25
None
<div><div>
 <p>
 BRISBANE, Australia. (PRWEB)
 September 25, 2017
 </p><p> Ian McKay Nunn has long studied the use of culture’s effect on its participants and how societal norms shape an individual. History is often marked by the abuse of cultural influences, so that the elite of society can remain in power. Nunn explores this concept with his first novel “The Chronicle of the Ostmen: Book One: Maelstrom.”</p>
<p>“The Chronicle of the Ostmen” shares the life of a privileged young nobleman, Mael MacConail. MacConail is not concerned with religion or God’s plans for his life; however, his world is turned upside down when the monastery is raided by Danish settlers – the Ostmen. He is taken hostage and forced to live in a foreign country and adapt to an unfamiliar culture. Caught in the middle of a war between the Danish and the British kingdom, Mael is compelled to discover his true convictions and decide where his loyalties lie – with the Danish or the British. </p>
<p>“This is a coming of age story that really highlights the struggle to accept or reject cultural norms that are thrust upon us,” Nunn said. “The Chronicle of the Ostmen really explores how society impacts our individual values and ideals and how does society use their cultural constructs to rule over people.”</p>
<p>“The Chronicle of the Ostmen: Book One Maelstrom”
<br />By Ian McKay Nunn
<br />ISBN: 9781504307529 (softcover) 9781504307789 (ebook)
<br />Available at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Chronicle-Ostmen-Ian-McKay-Nunn/dp/1504307526/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1502842648&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Ian+McKay+Nunn">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22Ian%20McKay%20Nunn%22?Ntk=P_key_Contributor_List&amp;Ns=P_Sales_Rank&amp;Ntx=mode+matchall">Barnes and Noble</a> and <a href="https://www.balboapress.com/bookstore/bookdetail.aspx?bookid=SKU-001109835">Balboa Press</a></p>
<p>About the author
<br />Ian McKay Nunn has been a student of art and culture for over 40 years. As an infant, his Scottish parents immigrated to a land of opportunity in the Antipodes in search of a better life. Ian draws his inspiration from his experiences living and growing in a foreign land with differing cultures. “The Chronicle of the Ostmen” is the first book in an intended series. Nunn currently lives in New South Wales, Australia.
<br />###</p>
<p>Review Copies &amp; Interview Requests:
<br />LAVIDGE – Phoenix
<br />Jacquelyn Brazzale
<br />480 998 2600 x 569
<br />jbrazzale(at)lavidge.com</p>
<p>General Inquiries:
<br />LAVIDGE – Phoenix
<br />Satara Williams
<br />480-998-2600 x 586
<br />swilliams(at)lavidge.com</p>
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 New Novel Explores How Culture Impacts Morals

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 Ian McKay Nunn examines the use of cultural symbols and religious practices to maintain control

 BRISBANE, Australia. (PRWEB) September 25, 2017

 Ian McKay Nunn has long studied the use of culture’s effect on its participants and how societal norms shape an individual. History is often marked by the abuse of cultural influences, so that the elite of society can remain in power. Nunn explores this concept with his first novel “The Chronicle of the Ostmen: Book One: Maelstrom.”

 “The Chronicle of the Ostmen” shares the life of a privileged young nobleman, Mael MacConail. MacConail is not concerned with religion or God’s plans for his life; however, his world is turned upside down when the monastery is raided by Danish settlers – the Ostmen. He is taken hostage and forced to live in a foreign country and adapt to an unfamiliar culture. Caught in the middle of a war between the Danish and the British kingdom, Mael is compelled to discover his true convictions and decide where his loyalties lie – with the Danish or the British.

 “This is a coming of age story that really highlights the struggle to accept or reject cultural norms that are thrust upon us,” Nunn said. “The Chronicle of the Ostmen really explores how society impacts our individual values and ideals and how does society use their cultural constructs to rule over people.”

 “The Chronicle of the Ostmen: Book One Maelstrom”
 By Ian McKay Nunn
 ISBN: 9781504307529 (softcover) 9781504307789 (ebook)
 Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Balboa Press

 About the author
 Ian McKay Nunn has been a student of art and culture for over 40 years. As an infant, his Scottish parents immigrated to a land of opportunity in the Antipodes in search of a better life. Ian draws his inspiration from his experiences living and growing in a foreign land with differing cultures. “The Chronicle of the Ostmen” is the first book in an intended series. Nunn currently lives in New South Wales, Australia.
 ###

 Review Copies & Interview Requests:
 LAVIDGE – Phoenix
 Jacquelyn Brazzale
 480 998 2600 x 569
 jbrazzale(at)lavidge.com

 General Inquiries:
 LAVIDGE – Phoenix
 Satara Williams
 480-998-2600 x 586
 swilliams(at)lavidge.com

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BRISBANE, Australia. (PRWEB)
 September 25, 2017
   Ian McKay Nunn has long studied the use of culture’s effect on its participants and how societal norms shape an individual. History is often marked by the abuse of cultural influences, so that the elite of society can remain in power. Nunn explores this concept with his first novel “The Chronicle of the Ostmen: Book One: Maelstrom.”
“The Chronicle of the Ostmen” shares the life of a privileged young nobleman, Mael MacConail. MacConail is not concerned with religion or God’s plans for his life; however, his world is turned upside down when the monastery is raided by Danish settlers – the Ostmen. He is taken hostage and forced to live in a foreign country and adapt to an unfamiliar culture. Caught in the middle of a war between the Danish and the British kingdom, Mael is compelled to discover his true convictions and decide where his loyalties lie – with the Danish or the British. 
“This is a coming of age story that really highlights the struggle to accept or reject cultural norms that are thrust upon us,” Nunn said. “The Chronicle of the Ostmen really explores how society impacts our individual values and ideals and how does society use their cultural constructs to rule over people.”
“The Chronicle of the Ostmen: Book One Maelstrom”
By Ian McKay Nunn
ISBN: 9781504307529 (softcover) 9781504307789 (ebook)
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Balboa Press 
About the author
Ian McKay Nunn has been a student of art and culture for over 40 years. As an infant, his Scottish parents immigrated to a land of opportunity in the Antipodes in search of a better life. Ian draws his inspiration from his experiences living and growing in a foreign land with differing cultures. “The Chronicle of the Ostmen” is the first book in an intended series. Nunn currently lives in New South Wales, Australia.
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