![]() In The Hydrogen Sonata, this issue becomes crucial. Some species choose other paths – and collectively transcend into the greater possibilities for wisdom conveyed by the immaterial dimensions of the "Sublime". Long ago they let most of the actual running of things be done by incredibly intelligent, if whimsical, artificial intelligences, who regard the fleshly beings they protect as quite amusing pets. The many species, most of them humanoid, who make up the Culture are intelligent hedonists. The vast majority of Iain M Banks's science fiction novels are set not so much in the future but elsewhere, in parts of the galaxy that regard humanity as a slightly embarrassing poor relation. Nothing is wholly serious in such worlds and nothing is so trivial that it can be dismissed from memory. Banks’ Culture series depicts a universe in which humanity has reached post-scarcity and spread across the stars in a decentralized, AI-guided community. A random mention, a gratuitous piece of irresponsible world-building, can become in a later book Chekhov's gun, which you hang on the wall in order to fire two acts later. When I picture the (good) future, it is some version of the post-scarcity world imagined by Iain M. The world, the universe, where they are set is a given, and you can explore any patch of it you feel like. ![]() For readers and writers, one of the pleasures of series novels that are not also serials is that you can skip around them with no particular concern about sequence or chronology. ![]()
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