It is interesting to read the books in the order they were written. The earlier novels (I am going completely from memory here) "Use of Weapons" and "Consider

It is interesting to read the books in the order they were written. The earlier novels (I am going completely from memory here) "Use of Weapons" and "Consider Phlebis" The humans are pets of the machines. The machines are vicious, and righteous. They use extreme, and creative, violence when they feel it is in their interests. In the later novels I feel Banks lost his way a bit, got too attached to the characters. In the later Culture novels the main characters are invulnerable, he does not let any of them die. Whereas in consider Phlebus (spoiler alert) Horza dies at the end and his whole race is genocided.