My favorite Banks sci fi is The Algebraist which isn’t a Culture novel.
To give you a micro taste of the story, the villain, the Archimandrite Luceferous, keeps the head of his enemy preserved alive for years after having it taken off surgically after defeating him, hangs it from the ceiling in his office and uses it as a punching bag.
It's almost the opposite of a Culture novel; the mainstream small-c culture is an extremely hierarchical, religious, rather technophobic, pseudo-capitalist society (the Dwellers are arguably a bit more Culture-y).
I'm not sure it's clear that Luceferous is even the villain. He's pretty unpleasant, obviously, but almost a side-issue.
The other major non-Culture sci-fi novel, Against a Dark Background, is also notably un-Culture-y.
It’s weird how Banks can casually create a villain character with such depth and richness almost as a side character and discard the character, whereas other sci fi books/movies would build everything around such a character, if they could manage to make one, which they can’t.
I'm not sure any [M] Banks books have a villain as a central character. Closest would probably be Veppers in Surface Detail (a wonderful creation, one of the most dislikable villains in any work), but even then he's arguably slightly a side-character.
I've wanted to see a movie of Consider Phlebas ever since I read the book in one sitting (literally) in May 1988... :-)
Edit: I remember it vividly as I took one day off between handing in my final year project on the CS degree I was doing and starting the final round of revision for the exams that were starting soon.
Wandered down to Bauermeister Books on the George IV bridge and picked up a copy and spent the rest of the day (until the wee small hours) reading it.
Oh, yeah, forgot about that one. I don't think it's really particularly clear where it's set at all; very little detail given about the wider world, IIRC.
I do wonder if there is any overlap between the Culture novels and The Algebraist. I seem to remember mention of aHumans and rHumans in both -- a fascinating idea really.
> My favorite Banks sci fi is The Algebraist which isn’t a Culture novel.
Is it not? The Nasqueron Dwellers are very culture-y in their habits an eccentricities. The Sleeper Service GSV is described to be holding gas dwellers on-board in Excession. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some cross contamination between the Culture and the inhabitants of Nasqueron.
And what I am clearly arguing that the list is wrong. :) It should be considered a Culture novel based on the themes, and the general behaviour of the dwellers.
Most culture novels are about the minds and their humanoid charges. But we also know that the minds keep not just humanoids, but also inhabitants of gas planets. They just rarely show up in the other novels because it is hard for our humanoid heroes to interract with them.
The way the dwellers live their lives: hedonistic, inward focused, and when they are attacked blasts the attackes with a before-then unknown superweapon is very Culture. I posit that we are seeing an offshot of the mainline Culture.
So that is my point. Even I clearly recognise that this is an unorthodox reading of the work, definietly not the mainstream interpretation. But you can’t just argue against it by saying “wikipedia says no”.
To give you a micro taste of the story, the villain, the Archimandrite Luceferous, keeps the head of his enemy preserved alive for years after having it taken off surgically after defeating him, hangs it from the ceiling in his office and uses it as a punching bag.