Sounds like Player of Games is one a lot of people have liked; and I’m glad that I’m not the only one who thought Matter was not as well-written as other Culture books.
I read The Algebraist a couple years ago - my first Iain Banks read, and while I liked it enough to look for more of his books, I can’t say it was one of my favorites. But a lot of people seem to enjoy his non-Culture books too.
I always wondered how the Idirans were able to go toe-to-toe with the Culture for any length of time without the equivalent of their AI Ship minds. They were the ones who fucked with the Culture most effectively, for the longest time. Of course, they got their beat-down, but still … it was not easy or immediate.
Consider Phlebas does mention that prior to the Idiran War, the Culture hadn’t built a warship in 500 years or so, and that the Idirans gain help from a limited alliance with the Homomdan (apparently a Culture or higher-equivalent tech civilization) through the middle phases of the war until the Homomdan grow tired of Idiran inflexibility.
Of course, given the abilities of Culture GSVs, the need for dedicated warships seems questionable, but there it is.
If you’ve read Consider Phlebas you should consider reading * Look to Windward*. It’s a sort of sequel to the Iridan war, and told almost totally from a non-human perspective. Yet you remain sympathetic.
Against a Dark Background is not a Culture novel, but nevertheless a good read and very funny in parts.
Also try Use of Weapons, very much a Culture novel.
Use of Weapons is one of my candidates for Best Science Fiction Novel … period.
Idirans: 3 times more intelligent than your basic human(oid), warrior-centric culture and religious zealotry. Plus they were the aggressors so they get to choose the time and place of the first attack which would have been a serious three-legged kick to the balls.
But yeah, for beings so smart, they sure did pick on the wrong enemy. Perhaps they were blinded by their religion into thinking it was their destiny to rule?
It’s more that they were blinded by their religion into seriously underestimating the capabilities of Minds.
Agreed. It also has what I consider one of the most “oh shit!”, disturbing scenes I have ever read (in amazingly understated prose).
Just finished Consider Phlebas and Matter is staring at me from the table. Appreciate the thread because now I think I’ll read a few in between first. If they hold my attention that is, I sorta agree with ZenBeam because I didn’t find it a satisfying read.
I’ve read three culture novels and I found Consider Phlebas the least interesting of the three. I guess I’m just not that into the whole “space opera” idea. I like there to be a point driving the story which is resolved (or not) at the end of the book, not a meandering story. Therefore, I enjoyed The Player of Games and Use of Weapons much more.
There is a story that’s resolved in Consider Phlebas, at the end
Horza’s dead. (Irreversibly - an important qualification in that universe.) His story’s over, and it turns out it was a bit of a tragedy
The space opera’s a backdrop for Horza’s story, it isn’t the story.
I don’t know anything about this topic. I just like the word fuck.
It is a good word isn’t it? Very versatile.
I’ve just finished Surface Detail. The reveal at the end was 
Great! It’s starting to sound like I should be picky about the uneven quality of the Banks SF novels, but after this thread so far I’m excited about adding Player of Games and Surface Detail or Excission to my reading list.
Thanks for all the recommends!
Becky2844, I agree that fuck is a useful word.
Thanks to everyone who suggested Surface Detail - I just finished it last night & really liked it.
I wouldn’t want to meet it in a dark alley (or a bright one for that matter,) but the Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints kicks ass!
Surface Detail was really good. Would have picked up The Player of Games first, but I was in a bookstore for an event and they only had the former. Probably will pick up Games next. 
I thought that even though the Iridians made the first attacks on the Culture, it was the Culture that declared war on the Iridians, not the other way around. I think Banks made is pretty clear that that was wasn’t forced on the Culture. They chose to participate in it because they found the Iridians fundamentally immoral.
You might be right (although nitpick - Idiran). In fact, Wikipedia says:
“The conflict was one of principles; the Culture went to war because the Idirans’ fanatical imperial expansion, justified on religious grounds, threatened the Culture’s “moral right to exist”. As the Culture saw it, the Idirans’ extending sphere of influence would prevent them from improving the lives of those in less-advanced societies, and thus would greatly curtail the Culture’s sense of purpose. As is the case with all major decisions, the decision on the part of the Culture to go to war was through direct vote of the entire population. Academics who have analysed Bank’s universe in comparison with real-world political thought have remarked that the decision of the Culture to go to war was a moral choice, rather than one of necessity, as the Culture could have easily avoided war.[2]”
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiran-Culture_War)
Further reading of the page also suggests that the Idirans entered the war thinking that the Culture would eventually bow out because they were decadent/soft and didn’t have a taste for war or a determination to see things through.
Do they get better after Consider Phlebas? I just finished it, and it was up-and-down. Action scenes were decent, and never felt as pre-scripted as a cheesy ‘good guy saves the day against all odds’ melodrama. But the theme was hidden, if present at all, the characters were kind of two-dimensional (did the Culture agent ever betray any humanity at all?), it seems the implications of some of the technology (Minds, FTL, co-existing races with vastly different levels of technology, human gene manipulation) wasn’t really thought-out, and there were some stupid science goofs, even given the technological premises.
For instance After stressing that anti-gravity devices don’t work on the ringworld (plausibly, though not necessarily, given that anti-gravity is basically magic so it could follow any rules)-- and having a character fall to their death when they forgot, just to emphasize this – scenes in the spaceyard (attached to the bottom of and rotating with the ringworld) have all kinds of people and things using AG to levitate/move.
I mean, I can forgive weak characterization if the implications of a technology are rigorously explored, or there’s an interesting theme, but when you only partially hit any of them…
They do get better after Consider Phlebas. It was his first Culture novel, and he was still working out a lot of the universe. I don’t know that he has it all that well defined in the book. I’d suggest The Player of Games, which is better developed, and also more conventional narratively.
Agree - I actively argue against reading Phlebas as a first Culture novel, even though it was written first and is earlier in the chronology. It’s just a poorer book than many of the others (POG is the one I would say try first).