Excession Iain M Banks, 1996

When Iain Banks revealed himself as Iain M Banks, unapologetic SF novelist, it was genuinely shocking. That genre novels are today treated more seriously outside the SF community has much to do with Banks’ Culture novels, set on the edges of a utopian civilisation made up of post- humans and Minds, super- powerful AIs. Excession is one of his best, a fearless novel of ideas that takes a generic space opera plot, the appearance of a mysterious alien artefact, and twists it into something rich and strange.