The Culture Books podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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