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Thanks to the advice of a few folks here, I decided to embark on an exloration of the Culture. I just started Excession - the only one available at my local library - and am enjoying it, although I do feel a bit lost at times. My library does have a host of Banks' non-Culture, non sci-fi novels as well; any insight into these?

Can't say I've read any of his non-Culture stuff. Mostly because I've never seen them around.

One that looked pretty interesting was called The Business. However, with the glowing reviews, I figured I should read the Culture series first. I'm a little lost in Banks' technobabble; perhaps because I started with what was available rather than what should be first?

Of the Culture books I've read Consider Phlebas is probably the best one to start with - it's got less technobabble and is the closest to a traditional novel format with the Mind comms that have to be interpreted in Excession.

Excession. is probably the worst one you could possibly have read as an introduction; it's not impossible to be sure, but much of it will be easy to not quite get if you don't know a bit about the Culture.

And personally I found Excession to be one of the weaker books anyway.

Thanks for the tips; Seafort and Rochey had already given me some advice, but I was at the library yesterday and just picked up what they had. The universe-specific technobabble is a bit tough, but the AI interactions are actually pretty funny. And there is a sentient species called the Affront. How great is that?

OK, I've read a little farther, and let me just say: the only thing better than having a spaceship called "Meatf***er" is having one that is called that as a derogatory nickname by other spaceships.

Like Mikey, I was interested by what I've heard about them; I just received the whole bunch of them, and I'll take a look when I can.

I re-read Excession again while I was on holidays. Just as good as I remembered it.

Rochey wrote:I re-read Excession again while I was on holidays. Just as good as I remembered it.

I actually think it stalled a bit toward the end. However, I have been unable to find copies of Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, or The Use of Weapons, all of which I am assured outclass Excession.

Oh, yes, those are easily superior in quality. I was just musing that it was still a good book, in my opinion.

I think that a sister library to mine has Matter. Is it worth transferring a copy?

Now that I have medication to deal with splitting headaches from reading without glasses, I intend to read these in order. I sure hope my library has a more abundant selection than Mikey's; like with movies or music, I never start in the middle of a book series.

I don't believe that the novels are serial as such; it's just that a couple had been recommended to me as good places to jump onto the train.

Indeed. The books jump around a lot, featuring different events and different people. There's not really any point you could say is a start or end to it. Like Mikey, I just got a suggestion on which books were the best and jumped right in.