Finally we get to see Zakalwe doing what he does best; soldiering.By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe goes to the snow!By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe ruins a lot of nice people's holidays like the total jerk he is.By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe takes us on a tour of life on a Culture GSV!By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe throws away his weapon, has a philosphical discussion, and fixes for a fightBy Sheridan and John

This is Zakalwe's brain on drugs!By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe gets in a lot of fights, but his love of the old plasma rifle finally pays off!By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe tries his hand at writing poetry in an idyllic rural setting, but it's not as nice as he'd hoped.By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe plays James Bond again, Diziet gets distracted, and our hero goes to an interesting party which he does not enjoy.By Sheridan and John

As a flashback from the worst day of Zakalwe's life we get the origin story!By Sheridan and John

Agent Zakalwe makes a big splash while trying to play the part of James Bond.By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe gets stuck in a storm, takes a long hard look at himself, argues with an idiot, and sees some very strange things.By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe spends a lot of time being rude to GSV minds, but does receive a lovely gift!By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe falls in love, and dreams about the ghost of the real Zakalwe.By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe seems suspiciously happy to run away from his problems, but they have a nice time at the beach.By Sheridan and John

We find out what happened to Zakalwe on Fohls. It was not nice.By Sheridan and John

Sma and Skaffen recover from a party and go for an island cruise. Meanwhile The Culture goes nuclear around them!By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe goes to the beach, and we ask, is he a Gary Stu?By Sheridan and John

Skaffen and Sma go to a party on the Xenophobe and have a fight....By Sheridan and John

Zakalwe has a less pleasant visit to a castle and we ask if any aristocrat can be a good aristocrat?By Sheridan and John

Diziet gets out of bed and the Culture goes to the wild west to see just how scary a drone can be!By Sheridan and John

In which we briefly meet an Ethnarch, and get a good look at just how stone cold cool this Zakalwe cat can be!By Sheridan and John

We meet Diziet Sma and spend a lot of time on how exactly she likes to bone. And The Culture seems to be putting a lot more resources into this caper than we've seen before...By Sheridan and John

We start The Big One for Banks fans, a great whiskey is reviewed, and the scene is set for a wild ride with fortunately short chapters!By Sheridan and John

We wrap up Elon Musk's favourite book with a short chapter that ties up a couple of loose ends and really gets into non-binary love.By Sheridan and John

With apologies for the delay we are back with the third chapter of The Player of Games where we get to see just what rat bastards The Culture can be when they get going.By Sheridan and John

Getting deep and dirty into The Player of Games and really wondering what Elon Musk gets into in this tale of cruelty and perversion. Chapter 2, Imperium asks a lot of questions and we do our best to answer them.By Sheridan and John

The Player of Games begins as we talk about the first chapter of this remarkable book and consider what games are really being played.By Sheridan and John

We come to an end of the journey for the first of The Culture books. Fear not we shall return soon for The Player of Games.By Sheridan and John

It's a big episode with a big body count! But finally we finish up in these goddamn tunnels!By Sheridan and John

We get to learn a lot more about Idirans, and trains, in a chapter that spends a lot of time setting up the finale!By Sheridan and John

The drone makes some jokes, the Idirans are mean, and Yalson has a big surprise!By Sheridan and John

The KFC ventures deep under Schar's World, while through Fal's musings we learn the history of the Culture.By Sheridan and John

The KFC on the CAT finally makes it to Schar's World and Horza's misspent youth catches up with him.By Sheridan and John

A madcap escape, the arsenal of the end of the universe, a plucky drone, and the immense drag of being a galactic warlord with a young dude hitting on you.By Sheridan and John

How much damage can a game do? We finally see the game up close and very personal, Horza and Kraiklyn settle their scores, and the scale and glory of a General Systems Vehicle is revealed.By Sheridan and John

Horza goes to a very bad place... some might say he's lucky to escape...By Sheridan and John

In the staggering vastness of the Vavatch Orbital Kraiklyn's Free Company try their hands at maritime salvage. But what is this Damage game Kraiklyn's really thinking about?By Sheridan and John

Things go as you might expect for Kraiklyn's Free Company in combat. And we finally get a look at the Culture on its own turf.By Sheridan and John

Horza, floating in deep space, is found, and fights for his life. Is this an allegory for patriarchal capitalism? And who is Yalson?By Sheridan and John

In this chapter we get to know the Idirans, big conversations are had, and Horza steps outside for a long walk!By Sheridan and John

In which we meet Horza, get our first glimpse of the culture, form views about the Gerontocracy of Sorpen, and become acquainted with Idirans. A short chapter, but a key one for getting this story on the road.By Sheridan and John

Welcome to the start of The Culture Books Club, a read-along exploration of Iain M. Banks Culture novels. In this episode some special guests give us a taste of things to come and we try and unpack the dizzying first few pages of the book that started it all; "Consider Phlebas". Special thanks to The War Nerd himself, Gary Brecher AKA John Dolan, a…