Andy said: > Can't say I've read any of his. Good starting books?
I think that the best places to start reading his Culture books are _The Player of Games_ and _Use of Weapons_. Other people would argue for _Consider Phlebas_ but I think that's too long, incoherent and not very good on balance (it's the only Banks novel I've tried to read a second time and been unable to finish). My favourite of his non-sf books are _The Bridge_ and _Walking on Glass_ (which are both sf/fantasy flavoured) and _The Crow Road_ (which is a long, warm family saga). [The Culture's Grand Moral Debates] > Yeah, you mean the one which made me /lurk on here? :P They don't tend to run for longer than a few days, but while they're running they can get pretty intense. Although, now that I think about it, we haven't had one for a while. At the moment we seem to be talking about whether a strong EU is good or bad for the US and whether steel subsidies are a good thing. > Who's over there who's no longer here anyway? I'm not sure who's no longer here, but the people the Culture recruited from Brin-L include: Charlie Bell, Jean-Louis Couturier, Brad DeLong, Jon Gabriel, David Hobby, Adrian Hon, Ritu Ko, Jeffrey Miller, Rob Seeberger, Gord Sellar, and Evan Vetere. I'm sure I've missed some too. Kat Feete defected as well, but she doesn't seem to have had enough time for the list for a while. In contrast, I seem to be the only person who's visited Brin-L from the Culture and ended up staying. Rich GCU Neutral Observer
