this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Lemmy World Rules
founded 1 year ago
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Indeed. Do you have a suggested reading order?
Excession is my favourite. There's very little cross-over between Culture books, and not all of Iain M Bank's books were set in the Culture (of those, I think I enjoyed The Algebraist the most).
Banks' passing was a huge loss. I don't think there's any other author quite like him.
Here's my input:
Use of Weapons is great, and comes next in the publishing order.
Consider Phlebias is the first published culture novel and it is a good book. I read it first, but since it gives a more outsider perspective on the culture it probably wasn't best to start with.
Either of those books is my recommendation, although be aware I've only read 4 of the 10 novels. Also as far as I know the books are generally self-contained and can really be read in any order, but there are some references you won't get if you do so.
I'd say read them in release order, you can mix the first two but stick with the way he wrote them,