Iain M. Banks The Culture Series Have you read any of the books from the series? What did you think? Where do you start and where do you end? Is there any order to them? I'm completely new to the series, so I'm thinking about picking up Consider Phlebas and see if I like it. Books in the series: - Consider Phlebas - The Player of Games - Use of Weapons - The State of the Art - Excession - Inversions - Look to Windward - Matter - Surface Detail - The Hydrogen Sonata Thoughts?
I've read Consider Phlebas, Inversions, and Against a Dark Mirror. (I also read the Algebraist, which isn't in the culture series but feels as if it should) The culture series is always a bit hit and miss for me. Inversions, for example, feels so detached from everything else thematically and ...well... culturally, that it feels like he called it a culture book just for the sales. I think I preferred Dark Mirror the most, but Horza has the best single story out of them all. I think if the series had a bit more connecting tissue to link them, I would enjoy it more and read more of them. If you like Banks, I would definitely recommend the Algebraist. It is SO deliciously bizarre and comical-yet-serious at the same time, it's worth a read.
