If you’re considering delving into the Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, you would be forgiven for feeling a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work and deciding what order to read them in. Thankfully, it is mostly down to personal preference, so here is mine.
What order to read the Culture series
When I read these books the first time, I picked them up more or less in order of publication and read them this way. Now, I would like to prelude this piece by saying that it is perfectly fine. But, looking back, I may have done it a little differently. There are good works and great works, and some curious ones, too. This means that it is possible to gain a little more from your first time reading the Culture series if you choose a different order.
#1 Player of Games
Although this is the second of Iain M. Banks’s published works in the Culture series, I would put it first in the reading order. The world of Player of Games perfectly introduces the reader to the Culture series without boring them. It also really shows off the scale and brilliance of what is to come in the rest of the books.
Player of Games shows off Banks’ wonderful imagination for adventure and inventiveness. Humans’ minds are tested to the limits under insane and wonderful situations, while sentient AIs look on in benevolent glory. Player of Games is a rollercoaster ride from beginning to end.
#2 Use of Weapons
This is a great second book in the order of the Culture series due to its display of the creativity Iain M. Banks is capable of. The book is set into two opposing narratives, with each chapter focusing on an alternative timeline. One is moving backward chronologically, and the other forwards.
Aside from the wonderful storytelling and Banks’ ability to write war of such galactic magnitude, this is just a taste of things to come. The Culture series has a number of books in the collection that are a little out there in their narrative. This is what makes the series one of the all-time greats. Use of Weapons is an exciting and accessible introduction to it.
#3 Consider Phlebas
This book gets a bad rap, but it is where I started because it was first published. It has often been blamed for the reason people won’t pick up a second Culture novel after the first: some find it dull. It focuses on one episode of a galactic war told from many points of view.
While creative and, I think, wonderful to read, it doesn’t really show off just what the Culture series is all about. Taking this book as the third will still make the references to the Idiran War in the later books relevant. However, by this point, you’ll be more willing to give Banks at least one slow book. Canonically it is important to understand the goings on in Consider Phlebas, but it isn’t his most gripping work.
#4 Excession
To pick things back up after the slow but still wonderful Consider Phelbes, you should consider Excession. This book is a wonderful example of how Iain M. Banks can broach subjects as large and complex as interdimensional superstructures while still maintaining a truly engaging romance story involving gender fluidity and childbirth.
This book is a real delve into the weird and wonderful mind of Iain M. Banks when he is given the freedom of true science fiction.
#5 Look to Windward
Look to Windward is a fantastic delve into some of the many varied and inventive races that exist within the Culture. Look to Windward is a perfect midpoint novel to read in the order of the Culture series for a few reasons. By this point, as readers, we are familiar with the AI and their varied, eccentric personalities. This is played upon heavily in Look to Windward, with the true humanity and relationship with physical beings being properly explored.
#6 Matter
Matter is no laughing matter and it could threaten the structural integrity of any shelf it sits upon. The book itself is a monster and shouldn’t be attempted by anyone not already invested in the Culture series. I personally consider it one of my favorites due to its complexity, vast scope, and thrilling narrative, but I was already deeply invested in the Banks’ universe.
Matter is a monster, but it rarely feels like a chore. If you have already become familiar with the world of Culture, then this book is just what the doctor ordered. It is a true epic in the series and a pleasure on every page.
#7 Surface Detail
Iain M. Banks plays with many interesting concepts in Surface Detail. The idea of human-created hells, capitalism, humans being in control of their own afterlives, and the threat of binding contracts are all wrapped up in this book. It is wild, scary, often horrific, and complex in its various branches and is a real moral workout.
As a standalone book, this is a wonderful choice. It clearly demonstrates Iain M. Banks’ ability to make the most of the science fiction genre. It can be picked up in any order of the Culture series or outside of it completely.
#8 The Hydrogen Sonata
I remember finishing this book and doing what I always did by immediately popping to my local bookshop for the next in the series. Finding out this was the final one left a gaping hole in my literary heart. It was like saying goodbye to a friend, not knowing it would be the last time we ever spoke.
The Hydrogen Sonata is a fitting end to what I consider to be the core Culture novels in the order you can read them. It deals with the idea of death and the end, using a race of beings as the final goodbye Banks gives to his readers. It is deep and complex and addresses the complexity of ‘The End’ and what it all means.
#9 Inversions
Banks has described this as an “attempt to write a culture novel that wasn’t,” and that pretty much sums it up. In this entry to the Culture series, we say goodbye to the mega ships controlled by AI and the comfort of a world of excess and plenty and instead are brought down to a planet representing Medieval Europe. Inversions, despite being a Culture novel, is an unusual one in the lineup, but one I love none the less. A good book for after the madness of intergalactic adventure.
#10 The State of The Art
This collection of short stories is a wonderful way to flesh out the Culture series at the end of the reading list order. These short stories expand on the Culture’s relationship to Earth and introduce some interesting characters and concepts. This collection of stories is Banks typically flexing his creative muscle. As a book, it can easily be picked up and put down throughout the list of Culture books as you read them. They are a lovely way to pepper one of the best science fiction series of all time.
