this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Science Fiction
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Oh, if what you want is deep stuff about The Culture, Phlebas is hardly it. It is usually recommended because it has the most traditional “Hero on a mission” plot structure and is also the first one ever published. It gets more exciting after the island cult section. But truly Horza is not a very charismatic protagonist, and the reader spends most of the time away from The Culture. I usually recommend to read The Player of Games first, it starts deep into The Culture and quickly breaks your head with the crazy stuff that happens when the plot gets going, and it actually has a relatable protagonist. If you want the most The Culture experience, Excession is perhaps the most esoteric one. There are basically no humanoid characters in that one. Surface Detail has the most relatable characters and plot, without neglecting hard sci-fi concepts.
Strange, I read The Player of Games relatively recently, and I didn't care for it all that much. I just really couldn't root for Gurgeh. That kind of wrecked it for me.
I sort of lost interest in the series because of it. Does the next book in the series have a more sympathetic protagonist?
Nice, so I started with the wrong one basically... I will follow your comment and go read the player of games after this. I was just afraid it never got better but you reassured me. I thought the series had some order so I started with the first one. Honestly, being separated books works even better for me. Thank you!
Oh no, this is not a serial. You pretty much won't ever see any reoccurring character. Other than some vague reference to Minds from previous books and some stories that share roughly the same time period (counted in the thousands of years), only The Culture itself and the Special Circumstances are semi-permanent fixtures of the books.