Books - The Culture Series

I like Churt's "Recommend a Book" theme, so I'll play along. He already put in a good word for what I consider the best epic fantasy series to date, so I'll move over to the sci-fi side.

I've been voraciously consuming sci-fi novels for over 30 years, and I can say with total confidence that Iain Bank's Culture series is the best I've ever read. Banks doesn't just think outside the box, he delights in setting the box on fire and pissing on the smoldering embers. Even jaded readers will find a new, oh-my-God-that's-so-freaking-cool idea on nearly every page of the extensive series.

This is not laser-blasting Star Wars fare, but neither is it Vonnegut-style navel gazing. It's something completely in its own category. Banks doesn't shy away from incorporating social and scientific concepts that are (to put it mildly) on the bleeding edge. Neither, however, does he make a point of rubbing your face in them. The author doesn't seem to have any social, political, or philosophical axes to grind; he merely postulates that this is what humanity may become, given the virtually unlimited resources and riches the universe has to offer. Whether you like his vision of the future or not, I guarantee you'll never forget it. The Culture, the most advanced branch of humanity in the books, is a combination of Roddenberry's utopia and Huxley's dystopia, mixed with a large dash of Thackeray's Vanity Fair.

The first book of the series is Consider Phlebas; give it a read. Just understand that this is not Star Trek or Star Wars or anything like you've ever encountered in popular culture bearing the sci-fi label; this is "hard" sci-fi at its hardest, but also its most fascinating.

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