This being the very first time I’ve read Asimov’s work for myself, I had absolutely no idea what to expect going in. Isaac Asimov is one of the heavyweights of science-fiction; a pioneer for many of the ideas and concepts that we take for granted in the genre today…

I was very late to the Culture party. The first time I heard of Iain M. Banks was when The Hydrogen Sonata came out in 2012, and that, only in passing. Years went by and I kept hearing snippets of things about the Culture series, from people who respected it highly. So on the strength of that, I decided to pick up one of the books, and what better place to start, I thought, than at the very beginning?