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Iain M. Banks' novel Consider Phlebas helped recharge the genre of space opera, and launched the Culture series. And now you can read it for just 99 cents. More »
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We don't find out what our science fiction/fantasy heroes are made of, until everything seems hopeless and their backs are against the wall. The greatest SF stories also contain the greatest "all seems lost" moments, and here are our favorites. More »
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To celebrate the release of Iain M. Banks' novel Matter, we've put together this handy primer for you on the Culture, the pan-galactic civilization whose members and ex-members are the subjects of so many Banks novels, including Matter. Not only do we have a rundown of every single Culture novel, but we've also got some important excerpts from an obscure essay Banks wrote in 1994 about the ideas behind the Culture universe. Get ready to enter a world where ships are sentient, humans live for half a millennium, and living on a planet is probably the most backward thing you can do. More »
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