OK, this started out of another thread. The topic is, at least to start with, but to make it more interesting it shjall liekly have to be expanded, Iain M Banks, more especially his Culture novels. These are set an unspecified amount of time in the future, or ratehr arent according to one short story, in which the Culture visits earth and examines it closely. Needless to say we dont look very impressive.

Now, Dee Cee mentiond "Consider Phlebas", perhaps they would like to explain why and wherefore.

Banks work is often multilayered, the best example of that being "inversions", in which I counted at least 5 or 6 different forms of inversions in the book. Or opposites, its hard to be very specific, this is after all a novel.

"Consider Phlebas" is I suppose a masterpiece of spcae opera. Banks characters are fairly deep, and he has a strong touch of the macabre and downright disgusting. However, one of my major critiscisms, is the sterility of many of teh storylines. And the ultimate similarity of many of the characters and so on. Admittedly, this is due in part to the omnipotech the Culture has, which renders life free of most annoyances you can think of. in that sense, he has taken space opera about as far as it can realistically go, within a nearly sensible framework of physics. In that sense he is in my opinion about played out, since the inherent limits of space opera (more, bigger, better action!) have been explored to the limit before (E E Smith anyone?)

However, he has in the past decade or two given us many good reads, and some really nice moments of awe. LIke that bit in Excession near the end where the GSV is approaching the excession....
nope, your going to have to read it yourself.

Ok Guthrie lets try and whip up some interest here.

With the 'culture' novels Banks has created a society with no rulers no laws and little suffering.
The day to day 'administration' of the culture is carried out by it's AI's. Meaning the average culture citizen is free to get on with life anyway they want. The average lifespan is 3-400 years though citizens are free to be made immortal if thats what they wish. All in all something of a Utopia.
Having set the scene Banks is then free to explore what such a society 'means' both to itself and to those it comes into contact with. His characters are well drawn with many of his protagonists coming from outside the culture.
The first book Consider Phlebas (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553292811/103-0256530-3780615?v=glance) explores the 'Culture-Iridian war' and is a good place to start. Fully formed characters and wild technology. All assembled with Banks' trademark humour and Imagination. The first and perhaps the best of the series. Mirrors, in many ways, the culture clash between the west and Islam that we know today.
Quick quotes.

'The first Iridian-Culture dispute occurred in 1267 AD the second in 1288; in 1289 the Culture built its first genuine warship for five centuries."'

'The Iridians were never any threat to you. They still wouldn't be if you stopped fighting them. Did life in your great Utopia get so boring you needed a war?'

'"Captain" Xoralundra said briskly, "in this war there have to date been fourteen single-duel engagements between Type 5 light cruisers and Mountain class General Contact Units. All have ended in victory for the enemy. Have you ever seen what is left of a light cruiser after a Culture GCU has finished with it?"'

'He kicked the corpse; the crowed booed'

'My guts ache, my chin is broken and my hand has pieces of your mass sensor embedded in it'

Try it you may like it.
Dee Cee

you see, also, the Culture is nearly your standard technocracy omnipotech based future culture. Really rather boring, which is why all the interesting stuff happens on teh fringes where it interacts with less technologically advanced species, and usually, less chilled out ones. That is possibly one of the more fun yet annoing bits, is that everyone is so damned chilled out, because there isnt really anythign to get het up about. physical need is a thing of hte past, due to stupidly useful technology, so you want a diamond the size of the Ritz, yeah, here you are. Want a personal starship to take you anywhere? Sure, theres one looking for someone like you, itll be passing through in six months time. So, this makes for like being boring, since there isnt anything you really need to do. But a few quadrillion entities like it like that, and so the Culture keeps growing.
For consider Phlebas, hhmm, its a few yers since I read it, but essentially, if i remember correctly, I am not so keen on the characters or anything else of it. its not quite my cup of tea. They arent quite as well drawn as DEeCee suggests, but it still manages to kepe one going.
I got into the Culture series by reading "the player of games" which is about a games player, who has played all the cutlure ones, isbored with them, (you know, chess, and stuff like that) and get sused as a pawn in the cultures attempts to change the thinking of a space empire that is ratehr hostile to them, by entering their games, which in a typically baroque Banksian touch, are often played for painful forfeits, and are the means of assigning rank in the society. Instead of exams, you play games. He manages this very well, and Banks does a good job of drawing all the nastiness etc of this empire, although it concentrates more on the player rather than the behind the scenes manouvring beteen the Culture and other sides in the story.
The Culture series have many stereotypes, possibly the most famous being the ships names . The spaceships name themselves, so you get a huge variety of names, such as "I blame your mother" to, i cant think of any mroe off the top of my head. MAybe you can help, Dee Cee. anyways, there are other things, such as changing sex, that make living in an omnipotech based culture interesting. So Banks shows himself capable of taking the mickey out of these in teh latest one, "Look to windward" although it might not be the latest one by now, illl need to check.

Culture Ship Names
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~mjhuur1/projects/banks/ships.html


What Is The Answer and Why?
Not Wanted On Voyage
Stranger Here Myself
Gray Area
It's Character Forming
Jaundiced Outlook

etc etc

As a friend of mine said "The best sci-fi is not that written by Iain M Banks", suggesting that his other novels can be taken as sci-fi as well. Which is true in a way, but I havnt read all of them yet, so I will only comment on the sci-fi.
He faces the same problem that E E doc Smith faces, how to escalate violence and action for dramatic effect. But he binds himself into the world of the culture.
If there is a gold mine in the culture novels it is the story of how it was created, the galaxy wide struggle by various sentients for independence or empire and so on over thousands of years. Yet we meet it in its decadent period, one that has lasted for thousands of years and is unlikely to significantly change. This is due to its presence in a static universe about which almost everything is known. They are at Kardashev level 2.6 at least, a good way to being able to control the resources of a galaxy. Furthermore, there isnt much in the way of frontiers for them, both physical and mental. outside meddling in an individual is banned, and most appear content with themselves. Exterior influences have been overcome, and physically the culture is on a secure footing. The culture is effectively omnipotent, and so, with nothing in the environment demanding their attention, tehy have become decadent. But it is a secure sort of decadence, with all their intelligence and history and lessons stored awaiting need, their perfect present guarded by minds more intelligent than any ordinary humans. So really, the most interesting entities are probably the Minds, but we are given the impression that they are too far beyond human to be properly communicable with. That is not entirely true, it is more that they are more human and alive than we are/ can ever be. In a sense, the Culture has abdicated living to the machines, letting the humans get on with being voyeurs/ hedonists.

"Inversions"
An extraordinary book, like all of his works. What I particularly like about it is the number and complexity of oposites in it. for starters:
Man/ woman
Assasin/ doctor
protects against outside enemies/ protects against inside enemies
helping the new ruler/ helping the old ruler


Now as for space opera, Banks has it all, big spaceships, weird worlds, and characters who have a certain tendency to simplicity, I htink. Which is not exactly fair. What Banks brings to the space opera genre is a way with words, and a sense of the macabre, as well as a generaly suitably dark and modern jaundiced view of people and what they do and intend. As complared to teh earlier space opera, which one reviewer has suggested originated from the western, Banks goes for the dark side. I dont think he is necessarily the first to do so, but is one of the most famous and successful to do so.