The Culture is Iain M. Banks' sci fi masterpiece - a futuristic society where benevolent AI minds provide humans whatever life they choose. Across the nine books you explore the Culture through their interactions, conflicts, and meddling with other space-faring civilizations. When the series is at its best it's full of action and adventure, and once the dust settles you're left with some extremely interesting ideas about what it means to be happy and have agency in a utopian society.

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As always, no spoilers until the end when we get into the full plot explanation and discussion.

Similar books we recommend:

• House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
• The Salvation Sequence by Peter F. Hamilton
• Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

This episode is sponsored by Moonrising by Claire Barner, published by Simon and Schuster and available here.

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for the episode:

• 00:00 Intro
• 1:04 What is The Culture?
• 4:13 Which book should you read first?
• 12:21 Why do billionaires love this series so much?
• 14:44 Iain M. Banks tragic early death
• 17:23 References to the romantic poets
• 20:31 Similar books we recommend
• 22:56 SPOILERS SECTION - PLAYER OF GAMES
• 32:35 SPOILERS SECTION - USE OF WEAPONS
• 42:04 The Culture as nation builders

In addition to ranking the six nominees, we also talk about four more amazing books that deserve to be in contention for the best speculative fiction novels of the year.

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

This episode is sponsored by Doppelgänger: An Orphan, A Prodigy, and a Murder by Chip Walter. A computer scientist awakens in a robotic body—next to his own murdered corpse, with only 72 hours to stop a conspiracy that threatens the human race. William Shatner calls it “quite a ride.” Learn more at chipwalter.com/

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for all the books we talked about:

• 00:00 Intro
• 1:26 Episode Sponsor - Doppelgänger by Chip Walter
• 2:03 6 - A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
• 4:58 5 - The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• 7:51 4 - Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
• 9:12 3 - Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• 12:49 - Four more great books that deserved a nomination
• 22:36 2 - Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• 27:15 1 - The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

In addition to ranking all the nominees, we talk about why the entire shortlist this year was all fantasy, no sci-fi.

This episode is sponsored by The Boy, the Cube, and the Elf by Brent Golembiewski, which is available in print or kindle edition here

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for all the books we talked about:

• 00:00 Intro
• 1:50 Episode Sponsor - The Boy, The Cube, and the Elf
• 2:21 #6 - Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
• 6:33 #5 - Sleeping Worlds Have no Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov
• 10:42 #4 - The Book of Love by Kelly Link
• 15:28 Why are all the nominees fantasy?
• 18:46 #3 - Asunder by Kerstin Hall
• 23:22 #2 - A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
• 27:53 #1 - Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell