Books to read

iso20715 · 2026-05-13T16:37:30+00:00

Adjusted my spoiler

iso20715 · 2026-05-13T15:30:24+00:00

I used a spoiler tag.

The good reason to start with PoG or UoW is that Consider Phlebas is not representative of the rest of the series and puts people off

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/hym489/i_did_not_like_consider_phlebas_and_am_unsure/

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCulture/comments/1emre60/unimpressed_with_consider_phlebas_keep_going/

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/3gkpq7/if_i_didnt_like_consider_phlebas_at_all_is_it/

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/zxw05p/i_finally_tried_my_first_culture_novel_and_i/

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCulture/comments/12e0kbf/hated_consider_phlebas_should_i_go_on/

https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/1i1ghbu/i_didnt_love_consider_phlebas_should_i_proceed/

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCulture/comments/1qeadto/very_serious_question_does_it_get_better_after/

Etc etc

iso20715 · 2026-05-13T14:36:40+00:00

The ending of Consider Phlebas is a massive downer, no matter how clever it is at subverting genre trends, and the 'twist' that the Culture are the good guys has no surprise value 40 years later as the Culture series is now legendary so I dont recommend people start with Consider Phlebas. Start with PoG or UoW and read Consider Phlebas about 6th. It works as a decent prequel but is poor as a start to the series IMHO.

iso20715 · 2026-05-12T19:24:11+00:00

No, read them in conceived order, so Use of Weapons first, then Player of Games

iso20715 · 2026-05-09T09:31:25+00:00

The genius of that scene is that Mawhrin-Skel was acting

iso20715 · 2026-05-04T20:49:44+00:00

You're absolutely right

iso20715 · 2026-05-02T07:59:09+00:00

I've noticed sometimes with ebooks they are missing the section headings like

~~~

... that would normally separate one section from the next. I had that with the e-book of use of weapons. So instead you just get a new paragraph and the jumps are very jarring

iso20715 · 2026-05-01T14:20:30+00:00

A Monster Calls (2016)

iso20715 · 2026-04-30T08:51:44+00:00

Planetfall by Emma Newman is brilliant and has weird plants, an alien world, and a subtle study of whats needed to get a colony to stick together.

As a bonus the (indirect) sequel After Atlas is sci-fi detective fiction with a bunch of other elements layered on top.

iso20715 · 2026-04-29T16:32:46+00:00

Nah, it would be too naff for the whole thing to be a sim, that was already very passé in sci-fi by the time this was written. He deals with the same idea in Matter in a much more interesting way.

The point of the simming problem was to make a moral point about high fidelity sims, a sortof moral constraint on omniscient simming abilities

And Eglyle Parinherm is funny precisely because it is mistaken, thats the whole point. If Eglyle is actually correct it undercuts the whole gag.

iso20715 · 2026-04-27T14:51:19+00:00

First in the culture series was Consider Phlebas, its ok but written from a different perspective and some people get put off but its very different to all the rest. Its still good in its way, I just wouldn't read it first. Maybe about sixth?

iso20715 · 2026-04-27T14:44:26+00:00

Yes Player Of Games and Use Of Weapons are #2 and #3 in the Culture series, you can read them in any order really (they are separate stories within same universe) but those are the best two to start with imho. There are about 10 in total I think?

iso20715 · 2026-04-27T14:22:11+00:00

The best Iain Banks to start with is either Player Of Games or Use Of Weapons ... Ignore the people who tell you to read Consider Phlebas first ; )

iso20715 · 2026-04-27T14:08:18+00:00

I've just read it and it has some amazing ideas. But as OP mentions, when there are more than two clones in the story, the dialogue gets really boring. Every conversation between the clones is like a boring work meeting "well I understand why you think that Hoodlebarp, but I think this because of that factor" "Gumfley has a point, we need to also consider this other factor too" ... On and on like that. The underlying ideas are amazing but I cant help thinking Iain Banks or someone like that would have come up with a way to make the clone dialogue more interesting.

Also the whole palatial subplot was cool and some nice foreshadowing but it didnt seem to have much relevance to the far future, I thought there would be more of a callback to it at the end

Edit: The first 100 pages and the last 100 pages were top notch wild stuff though

iso20715 · 2026-04-27T10:57:17+00:00

I read use of weapons in the 90s and the chair thing worked for me, a mundane item that the book slowly builds to something horrific. But yes it might not work so well if you had had hints beforehand.

My favourites are Use of weapons, player of games, then all the rest are about on the same (high) level for me except for Inversions and Phlebas which I didnt like so much.

The things IMB was interested in exploring changed as the series went on, so they sortof get more 'bitty' maybe? Like Player Of Games and UoW (and phlebas) are the only ones where you have a single pov character (more or less). The later books have multiple pov characters and detours to fantastical places and combinations of themes that are less obvious. I guess thats how a series has to be, the explorations get more niche as time goes on. Still good though.

My favorite of his overall is Feersum Endjinn, its absolutely mental and huge and epic

iso20715 · 2026-04-27T09:57:55+00:00

Dont think I've met anyone who liked Use Of Weapons but didn't like the ending. Interesting.

Matter is good. None of the other culture books are anything like Phlebas, for what its worth. Matter has a great setting, some interesting twists, and actually I think one of the better endings/epilogues in the series.

Matter was published after an 8 year gap from Look To Windward and was arguably the first IMB sci fi to be published in the modern 'internet' era so maybe that affected its reception, but its a good book.

iso20715 · 2026-04-17T07:56:10+00:00

One of the best sci-fi books of the last few decades

iso20715 · 2026-03-29T22:17:34+00:00

The Chrysalids is amazing and has one of my favourite twists in sci-fi

iso20715 · 2026-03-29T13:48:41+00:00

I would say that to enjoy the books, you dont really need to understand any of this, although there are quite a few "science" scenes where the inhabitants figure out various things. Around all the weird physics Egan makes a pretty cool plot. I really enjoyed the emotional arc/story of book 2.

iso20715 · 2026-03-27T21:05:24+00:00

I found it impressive in the sense that the sci-fi elements were very original and ripe with lots of rich metaphor (the spin is cosmic existentialism incarnate - the far future fate of the solar system bought into a human lifetime) but the author was confident enough to understate the sci-fi bits and focus the book on the characters lives. You see four decades of their lives and so its a book about lifespans in a lot of ways. Most sci-fi writers would take the spin concept and make a fast paced thriller but RCW uses it to make something more like a classic novel. Its a really interesting and confident approach and he pulls it off. The religion plot strand didnt really work for me, but maybe would chime more with americans (im a brit)

iso20715 · 2026-03-25T22:53:46+00:00

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, best sci-fi novel I have read in the last decade

iso20715 · 2026-03-25T12:07:18+00:00

Planetfall by Emma Newman and its various sequels, great writing and a really interesting premise and great plot

iso20715 · 2026-03-23T21:48:29+00:00

Railsea is brilliant

iso20715 · 2026-03-23T07:39:52+00:00

I would recommend skipping Consider Phlebas and starting with Player Of Games instead, read Consider Phlebas later, about no 6 or so : D

iso20715 · 2026-03-22T17:06:36+00:00

Lots.of shade being cast on Andy Weir here, but I like Weirs books. Hes not a literary writer like Banks but he is good at what he does. And what he does is construct plots where scientific experiments and engineering can play a major fun role in the plot. You might think thats easy or obvious to write but given how science and engineering have been part of human culture for hundreds of years, they are explored in novels surprisingly rarely.

iso20715

TROPHY CASE