The Culture Books In Order

Publication Order of Culture Books

Publication Order of Culture Companion Books

“The Culture” series written by Scottish author Iain M. Banks are science fiction novels. The novels stand alone that can be read in any order. The novels are all set in different years, around different main characters, but they are set in the same universe. There are both novels and stories as well.

They center around the Culture, which is a utopian space communist society of aliens, very advanced artificial intelligences, and humanoids. They live in anarchist habitats that are spread throughout the Milky Way galaxy.

There is almost no need for enforcement or laws because the people can have anything that they desire or want without the need to work. All production is automated because the technology has been so advanced. It has more advanced technology and more powerful economy than most of the other known civilizations, it is only one of the “Involved” civilizations that are actively a part of the galactic affairs.

People often live four hundred years in this world, and since they have no need to work, they often have to try to give their lives some meaning. However they can. This is due to the Minds and all of the other intelligent machines can produce pretty much everything better than the biological population. Some try and join the military, government service, and diplomatic service called the Contact. Few succeed to join this service, or the Special Circumstances, an elite place that is the Contacts’s special operations and secret service.

“Consider Phlebas” is the first novel in the “The Culture” series by Iain M. Banks that was released in the year 1987. A great war was waged across the whole entire galaxy that killed billions and made billions more doomed. Planets, stars, and moons faced a destruction. The Culture for its right, morally speaking, to still exist; the Idirans fought for their Faith. The principles of both sides were at stake here. Surrender is not an option. On the Planet of the Dead, in a deep and failed labyrinth lays a fugitive Mind. Both sides seek it out. The fate of Horza, Changer, and the motley crew of mercenaries who are unpredictable, machines, and human rests with finding it and it will mean their own destruction.

Fans of the novel liked the way that the novel ends, and the more of the novel that you read, the tighter things get and it really picks up. It leaves the reader with an adrenaline rush and a head full of startling images. Some felt that the novel is even better, once you have read the other books, because certain things that were not as big the first time they read it. You get to see the foreshadowing of what is to come in later novels in the series.

“The Player of Games” is the second novel in the “The Culture” series by Iain M. Banks that was released in the year 1988. The Culture has thrown up some great Game Players in its time. One of the best is a master of every board computer and strategy, Player of Games and is named Morat Gurgeh. His successes start to bore him and so Gurgeh goes to the Empire of Azad. This is a place that is cruel and wealthy; they have a game that is like life itself and is fabulous and complex. Whoever wins this game is made the emperor. He is mocked, almost killed, and blackmailed Gurgeh takes the game and the challenges that come with it. Especially since it could mean his death.

Fans of the novel think that the novel is not all that hard to keep track of all of the things that are flying around but is still able to be complex and intelligent. The main character is complex and interesting, but not really all that likeable. There is humor thrown in that really adds a nice element to the world. It all builds to an exciting ending. Banks’s prose is a pleasure to read and is still literary as always.

“Use of Weapons” is the third novel in the “The Culture” series by Iain M. Banks that was released in the year 1990. The book is a fractured biography of two men and made up of two streams. One stream moves backward and is numbered in descending order in Roman Numerals. The other stream moves in ascending order and is numbered one, two, three. An ex-special circumstance agent named Cheradenine who was raised by Diziet to eminence. A drone called Skaffen-Amtiskaw saves her life and believes Cheradenine to be a case of someone being burnt out. Not even this machine intelligence can see the horrors that lurk in his past.

Fans of the novel found this to be one of Banks’s best works, but his best science fiction work. The novel grips readers from beginning to end and has an interesting story in it. There was humorous parts to it too, dark parts. Some find that Banks is the best at developing his characters as well, and find that he is great at putting in fascinating and real people in his work. Even if you do not necessarily like the people themselves.

“Excession” is the fourth novel in the “The Culture” series by Iain M. Banks that was released in 1996. The section of espionage and dirty tricks order a diplomat named Byr Gen-Hofoen to take the soul of a star ship captain that has been dead for quite a while. To take this mission means that Byr is part of a conspiracy, with no way out. It will either sink the world into annihilation or put the world into peaceful times.

Fans of the novel find that Banks is a writer to be reckoned with and this novel is an example. This novel is wittily satirical, and comes from a deep imagination. This novel keeps readers’s attention throughout and sprinkled with humor as well as dark moments too.

“Inversions” won the Best Novel award from Italia Science Fiction Awards in the year 2004. “Look to Windward” made it on to a list of Best science fiction and fantasy books in the year 2001 by the editors of SF Site.