I met Mr Banks once (empty bookshop signing) and he told me that he wrote the Culture books because he was sick of so much popular SF being “capitalism in space”.
I missed meeting him at the Edinburgh fringe by 20 minutes and I'm still dejected by that. In the era before selfies and tweeting was a thing, and serendipitous bumping into authors at book fairs was possible.
I discovered the "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism" meme the other week and it still makes me smile - seems like a pretty good description of the Culture and I'm sure Mr Banks would approve.
Huh, I always assumed that that one was already in circulation when we was around, but apparently "Fully Automated Luxury Communism" only showed up the year after he died.
