…being a completist I started with Consider Phlebas, Banks’ first science fiction novel. This, I now suspect, is a mistake on par with starting to read the Discworld series with The Color of Magic–the talent and the good ideas are there, but they’ve yet to be developed.

A mistake? Really? Because that’s where I started with Terry Pratchett’s series. And despite being told that the later books in the series are far better — and despite currently having trouble remembering enough (or maybe any) of the first book’s plot to get into the second, The Light Fantastic — I genuinely enjoyed it. And I’ve been seriously considering starting with Banks’ Culture series at the beginning — Consider Phlebas.

Has anyone else out there read Ian M. Banks? Would something like Use of Weapons be a better starting point? (It would certainly be easier to find. There seems to be some argument about whether or not Phlebas is actually in print, but Amazon.com comes down squarely on the “not available” end, and I haven’t seen it for sale in any of the bookstores I frequent. So I’m wondering, should I just start with one of the later, possibly better books?