The Culture novels by Iain M Banks.
Reading them in order is strongly recommended.
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 12:18, 2 replies)

I've started a couple of the Culture novels, and while I love the ideas in them
And even quite enjoyed the writing, I can never quite get into him. It's odd, but I just can't decide whether I like his work or not, and I don't know why.
(Spleep Shit, or get off the internet., Mon 9 Jan 2012, 12:22, closed)

I started on two (can't recall which) and just couldn't get into them. I didn't read them in order, though.
I think it's because the world of talking space ships who are beings in their own right, people who don't have to do any work and bodies that can be endlessly adapted was just too much for me to take in. I like flaws and weaknesses in characters and genuine dangers and dilemmas that they find themselves in. If someone can use technology to do everything, it doesn't engage me with their world.
(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 12:24, closed)

I think you may have nailed what it is that gets in the way of my liking the Culture stuff. There's no real danger or surprise to it.
Moorcock dealt with the same ideas in the Dancers At The End of Time books, but I think he managed to show it as actually quite an empty, soulless existence, and anyway, threw in some modern humans as relief.
(Spleep Shit, or get off the internet., Mon 9 Jan 2012, 12:30, closed)

Fair enough, in my opinion one of the strengths of this series is that The Culture are never portrayed too heavily as being 'the good guys'
but rather as being lazy, occasionally morally suspect hedonist drop-outs who have succumbed to the temptation of letting the computers do all the hard work - I don't see this as a particularly positive portrayal of a civilisation.

Anyhow, give Feersum Endjinn a go, then. It's excellent for entirely different reasons.
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 13:10, closed)