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Hacker News is terrible at a lot of things, but they’re almost uniquely terrible about science fiction.
But maybe this is just a function of the fact that most SF fandom is *also* terrible. I must admit I’m regretting my youthful enjoyment of Iain M. Banks’ novels after learning that people like Musk and Bezos are inspired by him.
To quote from a comment I made
I don’t want to go full Rick-and-Morty copypasta, but Banks’ SF is a bit more mature and complex than most others. If you’ve only read US writers you might miss a lot.
Banks published a bunch of mainstream novels before *Consider Phlebas*. They are *not* kid-friendly, and neither is the Culture. The central question of the novels is
The protagonist of *Consider Phlebas*, Bora Horza Gobuchul, is an adversary of the Culture. Although genetically humaniform, he is fighting on the side of the tripod-legged Idirans who are, frankly, religious fanatics. (Later on, in *Look to Windward*, we meet another Idiran character who has resigned themselves to being conquered by the Culture)[1].
Why? Because Gobuchul does not want to live in a society dominated by the almost incomprehensibly powerful AI Minds that run the Culture.
Subsequent novels show the effects of what such a Culture can do when presented with the option to not only do good, but to *know* it’s good. The Minds can easily prove that killing a billion people can lead to greater happiness.
Yet according to the comment I replied to, many “Culture fans” regard Gobuchul as “scum”, and the Culture as the good guys.
Any nuanced reading of the novel makes you question that.
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[1] both titles of course reference T.S. Eliot’s *The Waste Land*:
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
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