About the book
A galaxy-wide war between the Culture, an interstellar post-scarcity society, and the Idiran Empire forms the backdrop of Iain M. Banks's first published science fiction novel. A Culture Mind fleeing an Idiran ambush hides on Schar's World, a dead planet that the godlike Dra'Azon forbid both sides to enter. The Idirans rescue Bora Horza Gobuchul, a shape-changing mercenary and enemy of the Culture, from execution, because he once belonged to a small group of Changers allowed on the planet, and send him to retrieve the Mind. Along the way he falls in with the crew of a pirate ship. The 1987 novel opens the Culture series and borrows its title from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
Demis Hassabis called it formative, saying he read it while writing Theme Park and still regards it as the best portrait of an optimistic future after artificial general intelligence.
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And then finally, I would recommend “Consider Phlebas” by Iain Banks, which is part of the Culture series of novels. Very formative for me, and I read that while I was writing Theme Park. And I still think it’s the best depiction of a post-A.G.I. future, an optimistic post-A.G.I. future
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