I'd put Look to Windward in the "best of" category. It addresses with the issue by introducing a character who has been personally, very poignantly affected by

I'd put Look to Windward in the "best of" category. It addresses with the issue by introducing a character who has been personally, very poignantly affected by the Culture's meddling, and seeks revenge for it, a bit like a reverse Use of Weapons. It's also the only book to directly reference the events of Consider Phlebas. I also liked how Matter described a very-low-on-the-civilizational-ladder (literally: It's a located on the lower level of a "shell world", an artificial planetoid constructed of concentric layers of habitation, each home to a different civilization) society whose players discover the Culture and ultimately seek to improve on themselves, while the book concurrently illustrates the other civilizations' underhanded attempts at playing the Culture. Minor nitpick regarding Consider Phlebas: The Idiran Empire are militarily vastly superior to the Culture at the outset of the war.