This flair for darkness, this balancing of perfect good with unspeakable evil is what keeps these novels from descending into Roddenberry territory. He has such a gift for observing and describing human evil, I can only assume he created the Culture as a Utopian antidote, to soothe the nightmares in his own brain. Banks has always been fascinated by the dark side of human nature. Readers will find it impossible to stay neutral as Banks brings us into a virtual Hell and chronicles the depravity in soul-numbing detail. The Culture is determined to stay neutral in this conflict, even if their sympathies tend to lie with the anti-hell side.

The dead come “back to life” and threaten to intrude on mortal politics, while the “Level 8” societies choose up sides. First they try hacking the simulation, and when that doesn’t work, they decide to build a fleet of warships and settle the question in Real Space, destroying the hardware that Hell runs on. But when the anti-hell side starts losing they decide to cheat. The factions agree to settle their differences with a virtual war, arbitrated by a race of natural referees. In these vast technological utopias, politics continues after death. That’s the argument at the core of “ Surface Detail” – the 9th Culture novel - where these myriad artificial afterlives have divided themselves into pro and anti-hell factions and gone to war.

But does a virtual Heaven need to be balanced with a virtual Hell? Banks’ Culture novels have decided to create virtual Heavens to reward the faithful. If you had the power to store individuals in elaborate virtual environments, what would you do with it? Some societies in Iain M. Imagine being able to copy, download and store a human mind – to be able to move it around like a computer program and run it inside a simulation that is absolutely indistinguishable from reality - a society where citizens are encouraged to “back themselves up” regularly so they can be resurrected in new bodies if they die. Critics are calling it “ Singularity Punk” – stories about societies so advanced, even death becomes a lifestyle choice.

Iain banks surface detail review