Everyone is entitled to their own readership of Banks. I’m not saying mine is the one and only. But the Culture is supposed to be a background character, even if Banks spends a lot of time in the later novels “explaining” it. But if the reader only focusses on the lore, they’ll miss the quite good characters and psychology that Banks was good at too.
My personal favorite is Use of Weapons, where the focus is on the people doing the Culture’s dirty work. In one scene, Zakalwe
spoiler
spends an inordinate time trying to protect a useless aristocracy from being wiped out by a revolution, only to find out his side was meant to lose for some inscrutable Mind-directed reason. This kind of shit happens all the time to him, and as he’s basically a deeply traumatized individual he’s able to keep doing it.
In Look to Windward
spoiler
Contact goes too far along the path of optimizing “help backwards civilization” and manages to create a genocidal civil war. The survivors decide to try to destroy a Mind (and the Orbital it’s managing), and you know, you kind of get why.
???
Is there something I’m not remembering from the book, does anyone have any idea what Musk is talking about? Or is he at a stage where he looks at a cloud and sees the protocols of the elders of zion?
@gerikson@sneerclub I knew Iain and he absolutely despised Musk. (Yes, even back before 2011 Musk was on his radar.) Iain was a socialist with zero patience for capitalist exploiters.
Everyone is entitled to their own readership of Banks. I’m not saying mine is the one and only. But the Culture is supposed to be a background character, even if Banks spends a lot of time in the later novels “explaining” it. But if the reader only focusses on the lore, they’ll miss the quite good characters and psychology that Banks was good at too.
My personal favorite is Use of Weapons, where the focus is on the people doing the Culture’s dirty work. In one scene, Zakalwe
spoiler
spends an inordinate time trying to protect a useless aristocracy from being wiped out by a revolution, only to find out his side was meant to lose for some inscrutable Mind-directed reason. This kind of shit happens all the time to him, and as he’s basically a deeply traumatized individual he’s able to keep doing it.
In Look to Windward
spoiler
Contact goes too far along the path of optimizing “help backwards civilization” and manages to create a genocidal civil war. The survivors decide to try to destroy a Mind (and the Orbital it’s managing), and you know, you kind of get why.
More on Banks and Elon’s terrible reading of his books
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/07/apes-do-read-banks-elon-they-just-dont-understand-him
edit from the comments I see the meme that The Player of Games is the Culture book to start with is prevalent there too. Oh well.
??? Is there something I’m not remembering from the book, does anyone have any idea what Musk is talking about? Or is he at a stage where he looks at a cloud and sees the protocols of the elders of zion?
@gerikson @sneerclub I knew Iain and he absolutely despised Musk. (Yes, even back before 2011 Musk was on his radar.) Iain was a socialist with zero patience for capitalist exploiters.