> Well, there is 'Feersum Endjinn' which you have to tune your ear to the language.

True up to a point. Not limited to Iain M Banks, though: the Bridge does much the same.

The key thing to know is that Banks was a Scot, and sounded like it. (I met him quite a few times.) If you read the phonetic passages aloud in a cod-Scottish accent they are much easier and clearer, IMHO.

> 'Excession' had a lot of talk between Minds/Ships which was quite dense.

I can only say that I did not find that. It's widely rated as many readers' favourite Culture or IMB novel.

I though that, for instance, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep was harder work, and much as I love Vinge's work, I found Rainbows End unreadable and DNF.

> Also there is a lot of descriptions of hyper-advanced weaponry, drones, etc

Personally I lap that stuff up.

> even though I enjoy the books, it can be a bit much sometimes.

Interesting. For me the reverse is true. I find they make most other SF seem a bit dull and lifeless.

Hah, I hadn't thought of Feersum Endjinn as Scottish, but you might be right. I've lived in both Edinburgh and Glasgow (although quietly, as an Englishman) so perhaps that made it easier for me, at least.

What I liked about Banks' sci-fi is that he generally avoided too much 'info dumping' that some authors suffer from. Like "He was a X'nar'kk from the Blagh'le system ..." for like 3 paragraphs before you get to some actual plot. The only time I saw that a bit was in the Algebraist - funnily enough - in the subplot with Luseferous (diamond teeth, enemy head punching bag). Of course the parts with the Dwellers made up for that ('I do hope you have enough people.').

I guess it comes down to whether all the detail is enjoyable or not. When it's a long description of how a Ship converts the majority of its mass into a swarm of weapon platforms or the rapid sequence of events in a battle between drones over the space of a millisecond then it can be good. If someone was not into that, I guess the extra detail is going to make it worse for them.

Feersum Endjinn and The Bridge are fascinating but, yeah, work.

Excession IME is fine for people -if- they've read several other Culture novels first. Having it be somebody's first one tends to be ... suboptimal, at best.

Inversions is also weird in that it feels a bit empty ... -unless- you know to read it as a novel about SC agents, and then it's far more interesting.

The rest of the sci-fi ones seem reasonably grokkable, the non-sci-fi ones really depend on whether you get into the style or not, I think.