Why You Should Read The Culture – Part One: The Hub The Culture Key – The Individual Books And Their Themes If you want to learn more about a specific book, you can click on its title in the key to learn more about it specifically. There are ten books in the series, but we are only going to deep dive on nine because State of the Art is a short story collection that is a bit different from the other nine. You can more or less start anywhere you want in the series, but we do recommend reading it in chronological order.

Please note that these themes are the very tip of the iceberg, but I hope they provide some direction into the meat of each book. So that the elements of the individual books are not lost, I will provide a map to nine of the core Culture books below that oversimplifies the themes that each book specializes in. However, because The Culture is made up of a number of standalone novels set in the same collective universe, each individual book has a number of things to say that are worth investigating. This piece will talk about the high-level strengths and characteristics of the series as a whole.

The Culture is a lot to tackle in one thought-piece, but absolutely worth the effort, so I am going to break out the discussion as follows. The Culture series by Iain Banks is one such set of books. However, every once in a while I stumble across a work that is so outstanding, so incredible, that even though I may not be the most informed science fiction reviewer in the world – I know I have read something truly special.

But science fiction? That is a beast that I have less of a hold on. When it comes to fantasy, I feel confident that I have read enough of the genre to have an informed opinion of what is new, fresh, or different. Science fiction is such a massive genre to think about at a high level. And yet, one such series did immediately jump to mind: The Culture series, by Iain Banks.

While there are a ton of series that we love, there are only a few that are complex enough in their wonder that they might need a guide. After the stunning popularity of our “ Why You Should Read Malazan” post, I sat down and thought about what other massive series could use a deep dive guide for new readers.

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