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Iain wrote both general fiction (as Iain Banks) and SF (as Iain M. Banks). He publicly stated, before his death, that he wrote general fiction to fund his SF writing, and that SF is the only genre of fiction that actually matters, because it is the only genre that speculates about problems we might encounter in the future and tries to devise solutions to them before we encounter them.
Most, though not all, of his SF is written in the Culture milieu. The Culture is an extremely advanced post-scarcity galactic society in which most of the hard decisions of running the society are made by hyper-intelligent, self-aware starship Minds. Many of the ship Minds are as interesting characters as the people are. It is a vastly imaginative, enormously rich setting, covering expanses of space and time possibly second only to Steven Baxter and Olaf Stapledon, though with much more human and sympathetic characters than Baxter (and without Baxter's tendency to "everyone dies happily ever after" endings).
In my opinion, Excession is the best introduction to the Culture, and the best place to start reading Iain M. Banks' SF works, even though it is not chronologically the earliest. My suggested reading order would be Excession, then Consider Phlebas, followed in pretty much any order by Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail, and The Player of Games. Use of Weapons and The State of the Art are side threads that can go into the list at any point, and The Algebraist, while technically not a Culture novel, is not incompatible with it. And you should finish up with The Hydrogen Sonata, the last Culture book Iain completed before his death, because ... well, by then, you'll understand why.
It is an incredibly bitter irony that Iain's final book (which was general fiction) was about a man dealing with the discovery that he has terminal cancer and has only a few months to live, and that a few months before completing the book, he discovered that he himself had terminal cancer and had only months to live. But those of us who know and love his Culture novels will forever believe that Iain M. Banks did not die. He sublimed.
By the time you reach The Hydrogen Sonata, you'll understand that statement.
Reviews with images
Pages were missing
Was shaping up to be a great read, then BAM! it's missing pages 89 to 120! Nothing in the product description said that this was a USED book. What gives?!?
Top reviews from other countries
Stefano
Ottimo capitolo di una serie fantastica
Reviewed in Italy on November 20, 2022