![]() It is in this context, then, that Banks, in his words, tried "to write a Culture novel that wasn't." Banks upsets his normal Culture pattern by setting his novel on a single world (with two suns and multiple moons) in a medieval-monarchic-patriarchal civilization that knows nothing of interstellar travel, let alone the Culture. A frequent Culture dilemma is what to do when faced with bellicose civilizations that just won't listen to reason or play fair: improve them, crush them, or ignore them. ![]() The Culture tries to be an enlightened civilization, being intolerant only of aggressive civilizations. The Culture is an interstellar anarchic utopian confederation of artificial and natural worlds populated by humanity, aliens, and sentient machines, and run by AI space ship "Minds." As resources have become practically limitless, everyone is theoretically free to do whatever he or she or it wants. Banks' Culture novels, which are usually replete with imaginative and sublime far future science and technology. ![]() Inversions (1998) is the least obviously science fictional of Iain M. "A Culture Novel that Wasn't" (But Really Was) ![]()
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