The Culture is Iain M. Banks' sci fi masterpiece - a futuristic society where benevolent AI minds provide humans whatever life they choose. Across the nine books you explore the Culture through their interactions, conflicts, and meddling with other space-faring civilizations. When the series is at its best it's full of action and adventure, and once the dust settles you're left with some extremely interesting ideas about what it means to be happy and have agency in a utopian society.

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As always, no spoilers until the end when we get into the full plot explanation and discussion.

Similar books we recommend: 

• House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
• The Salvation Sequence by Peter F. Hamilton
• Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

This episode is sponsored by Moonrising by Claire Barner, published by Simon and Schuster and available here.

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for the episode:  

• 00:00 Intro 
• 1:04 What is The Culture? 
• 4:13 Which book should you read first? 
• 12:21 Why do billionaires love this series so much? 
• 14:44 Iain M. Banks tragic early death 
• 17:23 References to the romantic poets 
• 20:31 Similar books we recommend 
• 22:56 SPOILERS SECTION - PLAYER OF GAMES 
• 32:35 SPOILERS SECTION - USE OF WEAPONS 
• 42:04 The Culture as nation builders