Iain M. Banks's Culture novels have earned critical plaudits as well as commercial success, and he is viewed by many as one of the most creative figures in contemporary science fiction. The Culture books form the large majority although not all of Banks's science fiction output, running to seven of the ten books published under his Iain M. imprimatur, setting aside the genre-bending status of works such as The Bridge (1986) and Walking on Glass (1985) written by his authorial alter-ego Iain Banks. This article takes as its central focus the complex relationship between two of Banks's Culture novels, Consider Phlebas (1987) and Look to Windward (2000), and explores the political and cultural contexts from which they emerged. While a number of critics including William Hardesty and Simon Guerrier have considered whether the Culture is a utopia, my exploration is centred on how the works may relate to the contemporary political scene rather than attempting to measure the Culture against an abstract ideal. In particular, I will be examining the extent to which Look to Windward reflects the cultural aftermath of the first Gulf War, forming a critical re-appraisal of key themes in Consider Phlebas as well as looking ahead to terrorism in the post-9/11 world. Consider Phlebas was Banks's first published Culture novel, presenting a secular, freedom-loving, technologically hyper-sophisticated civilisation spanning thousands of worlds where humans live long and fulfilling lives in spaces maintained by colossally powerful artificial intelligence (AI) entities known as Minds. In a society with almost limitless resources in terms of energy, one that is able to manufacture its own territories, citizens of the Culture have no use for money and can indulge in bio-engineering, including self-metabolised drugs and repeated sex changes. While William Hardesty doubts whether members of the Culture can be termed citizens "given the absence of political structure in their society" (Hardesty, "Mercenaries" 40), I think that to drop the term would obscure the political freedoms and privileged status afforded to them, not least protection from invading forces. Indeed, it is not that the Culture's political structure is absent, as Hardesty has it, rather that its organisation and machinations remain obscure and its relation to the citizenry hyper-attenuated, as discussed below. Consider Phlebas's space opera plot involves the Culture's war with the Idirans, a species of ultra-religious three-footed reptiles who have set out to conquer vast swathes of inhabited space and to defeat the godless and overly AI-influenced Culture. In the hunt to recover a hidden Mind that has been jettisoned from a destroyed Culture ship, a race emerges between "Contact," the Culture bureau that oversees relations with other civilisations, and a secret agent named Horza who is working on behalf of the Idirans. After many adventures in this widescreen baroque science fiction novel, it is the Idirans who fail in this mission and the Culture that prevails, their success presaging their ultimate victory in the war. The liberals of the Culture turn out to be more determined and resolute than their religious fundamentalist foes the Idirans had anticipated, and soon the Culture has turned the war around and decisively defeated the imperial ambitions of the unappealing and scaly tripeds.
