I too came from a cyberpunk reading habit and a friend recommended the Culture series as a change. I didn't like the first book I read which I believe is the f

I too came from a cyberpunk reading habit and a friend recommended the Culture series as a change. I didn't like the first book I read which I believe is the first in the series. I guess I just am a Tech Noir / Hardboiled kind of guy (I like hard scifi as well). My problem with "world/universe/space operas" books is I don't want to read them in a linear manner. I prefer to read it in a wikipedia like format where I can explore the author's created world instead of going through a story (there are exceptions of course). For example in a story when they passingly mention some alien civilization I immediately want to know everything about that civilization and am annoyed I have to wait 4 novels later to find out. In fact I have often read one book from a series and just go ahead and read up on wikipedia the plots of the rest of the novels. I often wonder if I'm the only one who thinks like this. It would be interesting if a world building type author had a wiki style pay to read collection of writings. I know some authors or fan-authors will write encyclopedias (e.g. Tolkien). The exception of course is extremely suspenseful stories. Those I can enjoy in a non encyclopedia manner.