You grant Liu his bold concepts but not Banks? As someone else pointed out, TBP would fit inside the greater Culture universe but not the other way around. > I

You grant Liu his bold concepts but not Banks? As someone else pointed out, TBP would fit inside the greater Culture universe but not the other way around. > I don't think advanced civs not getting involved is a counterexample to the colonialist template. Your criticism was of a supposed simplistic pattern of plotting across the books, not that the Culture's behavior is generally colonialist. The "template" I understood you to be talking about is one of plot. > One way to check whether Banks' characters are bland: look through these posts. Yeah I'm not sure about that. What sci-fi novels claim fans with this enthusiasm about the characters? Especially non-serialized space operas? Even if the characters aren't all-time greats, the personality he writes into even the bit players is commendable. The drone escaping the Peace Makes Plenty at the beginning of Excession comes to mind.