Then I’d vote for Use of Weapons, which is by far my favorite Banks work and requires no reference to the other Culture books to make sense (as Precambrianmollusc notes.)
The *only *reason I picked Consider Phlebas is because of its place as the first Culture novel, not having seen your note before.
I also chose Consider Phlebas becasue it’s book 1. There are a lot of good reasons why something other than Consider Phlebas should be subbed in, but the fact that it’s book 1 carries the day. I’m using book 1 as the “series representative” for almost all series under the keep-it-simple-stupid principle. I’ve made semi-exceptions in a couple of cases, but when I start thinking too much about how to handle series, especially longer ones, I get too distracted from the main part of the project. Maybe the right answer will reveal itself as I go along.
Fair enough. I didn’t realize this was an “official” list with guidelines and stuff.
Well it may be the first Culture book, but the Culture books are NOT a series. There are few if any repeating characters. The story lines are not linked. Each book is a standalone. And “Consider Phlebas” is also written with a central character who is NOT a member of the Culture but an enemy agent working against it. So you get a very distorted view of the Culture. It’s also very episodic, compared to subsequent novels. So, another vote against Consider Phlebas as the starter.
Well, I’ve discussed the parameters that I’m using for the lists many times throughout the thread. I can’t expect you all to keep track of all the particulars, but I’m not entirely sure how you missed the fact that there ARE parameters. 
In other news, I ran across this excellent page on Wikipedia called the Timeline of Science Fiction that I wanted to share. It contains extensive information on pre-20th century work, which is virtually missing from many other sources. The info on pre-WWII work is much more complete than most as well. The list also contains references to various concurrent historical events which puts the developments into a nice context.
If you all know of any sites with interesting/relevant info, I’d love to know about them.
That’s a good point. I can’t think of a single character who appears in more than one Culture novel except in passing references (like the Interesting Times Gang and Grey Area.)
ETA: That was directed to Evil Captor.
There’s one character that does, But you learn about his second appearance as a shocking reveal.
Okay, okay! I’ll consider Not-Phlebas, all right?
Consider Phlebas is an awful title, anyway. WTF is a phlebas? It sounds an unpleasant anatomical structure located in the upper digestive tract, like a uvula or epiglottis or something.
It’s from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. Phlebas is the subject of a (brief) cautionary tale in the poem about mortality.
The last three lines are quoted at the end of the book, and Look to Windward of course also takes its title from them (and is also partly about the Idiran War.)
Who?
PM sent. It’s a giant A-Ha! moment in the book, which is why I didn’t mention the identity, even under a spoiler tag.
UPDATES!
Here is Group 1 again, spoiler-boxed for space reasons:
Adams, Douglas - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Asimov, Isaac - Foundation
Asimov, Isaac - I, Robot
Asimov, Isaac - The Caves of Steel
Atwood, Margaret - The Handmaid’s Tale
Bacigalupi, Paolo - The Windup Girl
Bester, Alfred - The Stars My Destination
Bradbury, Ray - Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray - The Martian Chronicles
Brin, David - Startide Rising
Brooks, Max - World War Z
Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott - Ender’s Game
Chabon, Michael - The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Clarke, Arthur C. - 2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Arthur C. - Childhood’s End
Clarke, Arthur C. - Rendezvous with Rama
Dick, Philip K. - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K. - The Man in the High Castle
Frank, Pat - Alas, Babylon
Gibson, William - Neuromancer
Haldeman, Joe - The Forever War
Heinlein, Robert A. - Starship Troopers
Heinlein, Robert A. - Stranger In A Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert A. - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert A. - The Past Through Tomorrow
Herbert, Frank - Dune
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Le Guin, Ursula K. - The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K. - The Left Hand of Darkness
McCarthy, Cormack - The Road
Miller Jr., Walter M. - A Canticle For Leibowitz
Niven, Larry - Ringworld
Niven & Pournelle - Lucifer’s Hammer
Niven & Pournelle - The Mote In God’s Eye
Orwell, George - Nineteen Eighty-Four
Pohl, Frederik - Gateway
Russell, Mary Doria - The Sparrow
Scalzi, John - Old Man’s War
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft - Frankenstein
Simak, Clifford - Way Station
Simmons, Dan - Hyperion
Stephenson, Neal - Snow Crash
Verne, Jules - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Vinge, Vernor - A Fire Upon the Deep
Vonnegut, Kurt - Slaughterhouse-Five
Wells, H. G. - The War Of The Worlds
Wells, H.G. - The Time Machine
Willis, Connie - Doomsday Book
Wilson, Robert Charles - Spin
I wasn’t happy with group 2 in its previous 50-book incarnation, nor was I happy with the way the rest of the categories were shaping up, so I reconceptualized as follows:
Abbott, Edwin A. - Flatland
Aldiss, Brian - Helliconia Spring [Helliconia Trilogy S1]
Aldiss, Brian - Non-Stop (aka Starship)
Anderson, Poul - Tau Zero
Asimov, Isaac - Pebble in the Sky
Asimov, Isaac - The End of Eternity
Asimov, Isaac - The Gods Themselves
Ballard, J.G. - The Drowned World
Banks, Iain M. - Consider Phlebas [Culture Series S1]
Bear, Greg - Darwin’s Radio
Bear, Greg - The Forge of God
Bellamy, Edward - Looking Backward, 2000-1887
Benford, Gregory - In the Ocean of Night
Benford, Gregory - Timescape
Bester, Alfred - The Demolished Man
Blish, James - Cities in Flight
Borroughs, Edgar Rice - John Carter of Mars
Bradbury, Ray - The Illustrated Man
Brunner, John - Stand on Zanzibar
Bujold, Lois McMaster - Shards of Honor [Vorkosigan Saga S1]
Butler, Octavia - Kindred
Butler, Octavia - Lilith’s Brood (aka Xenogenesis) [Omnibus of Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago]
Capek, Karel - R.U.R.
Card, Orson Scott - Speaker for the Dead
Cherryh, C.J. - Cyteen
Cherryh, C.J. - Downbelow Station
Christopher, John - The Death of Grass (aka No Blade of Grass)
Clarke, Arthur C. - The City and the Stars
Clarke, Arthur C. - The Fountains of Paradise
Clement, Hal - Mission of Gravity
Cline, Ernest - Ready Player One
Crichton, Michael - The Andromeda Strain
Delany, Samuel R. - Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R. - Dhalgren
Dick, Philip K. - Ubik
Disch, Thomas - Camp Concentration
Ellison, Harlan - The Essential Ellison [Collection]
Farmer, Philip Jose - To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Finney, Jack - Time and Again
Gibson, William and Sterling, Bruce - The Difference Engine
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins - Herland
Haldeman, Joe - Forever Peace
Hamilton, Peter F. - The Reality Dysfunction
Harrison, Harry - The Stainless Steel Rat [Series S1]
Harrison, M. John - The Centauri Device
Heinlein, Robert A. - Expanded Universe
Ishiguro, Kazuo - Never Let Me Go
James, P.D. - Children of Men
Keyes, Daniel - Flowers For Algernon
King, Stephen - The Stand
Kunstler, James Howard - World Made By Hand
Laumer, Keith - The Great Time Machine Hoax
Lem, Stanislaw - Solaris
Lem, Stanislaw - The Cyberiad
Matheson, Richard - I Am Legend
McIntyre, Vonda N. - Dreamsnake
Mieville, China - Embassytown
Moore, Alan and Gibbons, Dave - Watchmen
More, Thomas - Utopia
Morgan, Richard - Altered Carbon
Norton, Andre - Star Man’s Son (aka Daybreak: 2250 AD)
Pangborn, Edgar - Davy
Pohl, Frederik and Kornbluth, C.M. - The Space Merchants
Priest, Christopher - Inverted World
Pynchon, Thomas - Gravity’s Rainbow
Rand, Ayn - Atlas Shrugged
Reynolds, Alastair - Revelation Space [Revelation Space S1]
Robinson, Kim Stanley - Red Mars [Mars Trilogy S1]
Russ, Joanna - The Female Man
Sagan, Carl - Contact
Shute, Nevil - On the Beach
Silverberg, Robert - Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert - Hawksbill Station
Simak, Clifford - City
Smith, E.E. - Triplanetary [Lensman Series S1]
Stapledon, Olaf - Odd John
Stephenson, Neal - Anathem
Stephenson, Neal - The Diamond Age
Sterling, Bruce - Islands in the Net
Stewart, George R. - Earth Abides
Stross, Charles - Accelerando
Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris - Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika
Sturgeon, Theodore - More Than Human
Tepper, Sheri S. - The Gate to Women’s Country
Van Vogt, A.E. - Slan
Van Vogt, A.E. - The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Vance, Jack - The Dying Earth
Varley, John - Steel Beach
Varley, John - Titan
Vinge, Vernor - Rainbow’s End
Vonnegut, Kurt - Cat’s Cradle
Watts, Peter - Blindsight
Weber, David - On Basilisk Station [Honor Harrington S1]
Whitehead, Colson - Zone One
Wilhelm, Kate - Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang
Wyndham, John - The Day Of The Triffids
Wyndham, John - The Midwich Cuckoos
Zamyatin, Yevgeny - We
Zelazny, Roger - Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger - This Immortal (aka Call me Conrad)
And I started with a stab at a YA top 10. Which is currently a top 9.
Christopher, John - The White Mountains (Tripods Trilogy)
Collins, Suzanne - The Hunger Games
Doctorow, Cory - Little Brother
DuBois, William Pene - The Twenty-One Balloons
DuPrau, Jeanne - The City of Ember
Heinlein, Robert A. - Space Cadet
L’Engle, Madeline - A Wrinkle In Time
Lowry, Lois - The Giver
Piper, H.Beam - Little Fuzzy
Eagerly awaiting feedback!
Your first list is as good as any I’ve ever seen, and though I might quibble over a couple of choices, I won’t.
Your second list … well, I would take half of them, throw them into the first list, and call all 100 highest priority. 
My nominations for your YA collection:
Sylvia Engdahl’s Enchantress From the Stars. It seems to be almost forgotten today, but a lot of people of my generation remember it fondly.
A whole lot of Andre Norton. Star Rangers, Star Guard, Judgement on Janus, Catseye, Night of Masks.
A whole lot of Heinlein’s juveniles: The Rolling Stones, Space Cadet, Starman Jones, The Star Beast.
Gordon Dickson’s Secret Under the Sea (contained in an omnibus titled Secrets of the Deep).
Is Eleanor Cameron’s The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet considered “YA” or “children’s”?
I’m liking that Cherryh’s there, I must say.
For YA stuff - have you read Mieville’s Railsea? And Pratchett/Baxter’s Long Earth?