http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/use of weapons http://io9.com/tag/use of weapons

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 »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=354739&view=rss&microfeed=true