With Look to Windward it was more of the whole Chelgrian hardliner contingent pushing for the Hells and kind of leading the “war”, and there were references to the “prior Culture incident”, IIRC.
I forget why Consider Phlebas was tied in - maybe something about the Idirans, would need to go back and look to remember.
Gads, it’s been almost twelve years. That time flew.
Wait, that’s not normal? Haha. This is me in general. I have lost my patience for stupidity and ignorance (never really had it, but now more than ever since you know what started). I’ve become a perfectly happy homebody talking to all you fine people vs. many of the knuckleheads who abound in the non-bass filtered world.
Absolutely agree with you. I am planning to re-read them, in some cases it’s been a really long time. I am unable to set on a preferred order. Maybe I should simply pick up my copy of Use of Weapons and move forward (or… Backward? 
)
I am sorry to hear that. Hope you will recover or at least achieve a reasonable equilibrium.
Use of Weapons is a fine start for a rereading spree. My third favorite of his Culture novels, and only by a hair behind Look to Windward, and for a while it was my favorite book of any genre.
I can understand. For a while it was my all around favourite novel, too. I read it in quite a formative period. I am curious, what is your current Iain M Banks’ favoured?
That is actually what I just got inspired to do as well… 
Not least because there is one scene, which I am pretty sure is from a Culture novel, but I just can’t seem to remember which, and that is killing me: it is about an artefact like a whole “asteroid belt” full of manufacturing units that slowly use up their own material while manufacturing stuff, and I think it had something to do with smatter (or other weapons these things have been re-programmed to manufacture), but I just don’t get the details together anymore, or the novel in which it played a role…
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson
It’s an easily digestible summary of everything he’s ever learned in a massive career about learning how people become really good at things.
It absolutely applies to learning music.
Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics by Levitt/Dubner
You’ll never look at any information the same way again.
I’ve played bits of it while taking people places in my car. Without exception, they always want to hear more of it.
My current favorites in order would be
Surface Detail
Look To Windward
Use of Weapons
which is the opposite order one should read them in of course 
Then it’s probably a tie between Hydrogen Sonata and Matter, and then Excession, and then the others - though they are all fantastic.
Even Inversions, the Culture book from the other side
Ha ha add me to the club! I see I am not alone!
Sounds a lot like smatter in Banks or the Greenflies in Reynolds.
“Artifacts” made me think of “Against a Dark Background”, though
Lol, the Lazy Gun. Best weapon ever in SF.
Yes, I am sure it is from a Culture novel, just not which one!
Then again, I could be way off… (could all be implanted memories anyway… 
)
@howard both books from fantastic authors! Unfortunately Iain M. Banks (Hydrogen Sonata) died a few years ago but Alastair Reynolds released his latest, Inhibitor Phase, less than two weeks ago.
This might leave B2Bers aghast - but if I have a free hour or two on the horizon - I have to make a conscious decision about picking up the bass or picking up the latest sci-fi novel on my kindle. (And yes, I prefer real paper books - but I can’t keep 1000 of them on my end table to suit my mood like a kindle can). But if I’m being honest the bass wins 3 of 4 times because I know I can get in an hour of reading just before drifting off to sleep.
Ok - I’m going to check these guys out right away. My current favorite semi-off-the-wall, blow your mind with huge ideas author is Peter Watts. Bleeding edge neuroscience in these novels - like seriously, I have more than one bio based graduate degree and I had to dig out my copy of Kandel’s Principles of Neural Science to figure out some of the stuff that was going on. You can plow right though Watt’s novels and they’re just good stories - but if you dig into the science - then they are incredibly good.
Yeah, Peter Watts has some cool stuff!
Exurb1a and qntm are more off-the-wall… zanier… different, not really hard SF… weirder at times… (and inexpensive on Kindle 
)
For super hard science-based-to-make-your-ears-bleed SF go for Greg Egan 
I do enjoy Greg Egan, while I had never heard about Peter Watts. Thanks for the heads-up.
Thanks for the Iain Banks intro, guys. I just spent a decent set of flatwounds on Audible. I have seen the titles, but didn’t have any recommendations before.
In the last five years, I’ve listened to several hundred audiobooks in the downtimes of exercise, cooking, mowing, commuting, showering, shopping and driving.
Great! Just a question, did you get Iain Banks or Iain M. Banks? Because we were mentioning the latter. The author used the M. Version or his name for the science fiction works. I do love his works and he writes in a most excellent english, but just be warned because some of his themes … Hit hard. Don’t tell us that you were not warned!
