He does so less out of conviction in their theology, and more out of a sense that life in the Culture is a dead-end state, a pleasant but ultimately hollow existence. The hero of this story, interestingly, is Horza, a man with shape-changing abilities who works as an agent for the Idirans. However, the Culture is being encroached on by the Idirans, a religious warrior species that rejects what they regard as its empty machine dependence. Here, we get a galaxy that's partly under the sway of The Culture, a giant liberal wish-fulfillment fantasy of a society in which benevolent machine overseers ensure freedom, tolerance, and material well-being for all. And, indeed, reading it gave me a better handle on Banks's vision, which I think is what really attracts people to his Culture books. But given his popularity in the SF community and his recent tragic death, I figured I'd give him another try - maybe I just hadn't picked the right books? Consider Phlebas is the first entry in the Culture series, so it seemed like a sensible place to go next. I've listened to two other Iain M Banks novels, Player of Games and Surface Detail, and had a somewhat lukewarm reaction to them. Visionary but half-cooked intro to Culture 'verse
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