A well-constructed meditation on games, inequality and brutality, and utopia itself.

I read this 20+ years ago and remembered most of it – itself a measure of quality. It’s interesting that Banks suggests the Culture is only comprehensible by those outside it. Within the Culture docile, pampered beings exist worry-free lives like goldfish in a tank. The pacing and tone are masterful. What a writer!

This book probably needs to be understood in the context it was written. In 1988 the Soviet Union was still extant, and the U.S. and U.K. probably did (and certainly still does) resemble to Empire of Azad much more than the Culture. It’s quite a subversive work.