I really loved Quantum Thief, with it's Accelerando-like scope & scale of expansion, but mixed with such weird/eccentric/vibrant local mythos of the world, such

I really loved Quantum Thief, with it's Accelerando-like scope & scale of expansion, but mixed with such weird/eccentric/vibrant local mythos of the world, such history. Without my prompting it ended up in our local sci-fi/fantasy book club's rotation a couple months back, and there was some enjoyment but overall the major mood seemed to be pretty befuddled and confused, somewhat hurt at some of the trauma/bad (which isn't better in book 2!). But man, it worked so well for me. As you say, a very deep end book. But there's so much fun stuff packed in, such vibes; I loved puzzling it through the first time, being there for the ride, and found only more to dig into the next time. Still feels very different from Banks, where "space hippies with guns" has such a playful side. Quantum Thief is still a story of a solar system, and pressures within it, but there's such amorphous & vast extends covered by the Culture, so many many things happening in that universe. The books get to take us through Special Cirumstances, through such interesting edge cases, where-as the polot of Quantum Thief orbits the existing major powers of the universe.