I haven’t read all of Iain M. Banks The Culture series, but I highly recommend Use of Weapons. I’ve read it three times, and it gets better each time.
It’s not a bad introduction to The Culture, but please feel free to recommend another novel to start with, or your favourite. I’ve read this, Look to Windward, Consider Phlebas, and The Player of Games. As I recall, Look to Windward has some good descriptions of a large Culture ship.
I’d also love to hear your favourite ship name.
Edit: I see I added The to the title…
I quite like the later novels, both Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata are fresher in my mind. But I do remember enjoying Player of Games and Excession as well. Inversions was probably my least enjoyed Culture book.
I think you can really jump in any where as they’re all mostly seperate stories.
I wouldn’t recommend Inversions before any of the others as a lot of stuff we’re meant to be in on that a lot of the cast aren’t is based on information form the other books, like how Special Circumstances operate and such.
I agree with that. I meant I didn’t really like it as much as the rest of the Culture books. I read them in published order, so I was familiar by the time I got to Inversions.