This book presents a history of Iain M. Banks' Culture series from its inception in the mid-1970s to the last novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, which was published less than a year before Banks' death. Included in this history are Banks' origins as a writer, the development of his political and ethical thinking, his struggles to become a published author, his eventual success in 1984 with The Wasp Factory, and the publication of the first Culture novel--Consider Phlebas--in 1987. Also included are his 1994 essay ''A Few Notes on the Culture,'' the range of critical responses to the ten Culture books Banks published in his lifetime, and the current consensus regarding the series' status as utopian literature.

Banks was a complex man, both in his everyday life and on the page, and this work aims at understanding the Culture series not only as a fundamental contribution to SF in general and space opera in particular, but also as a product of its creator's responses to the turbulent times he shared with the rest of us.