How did you find the series? What are your favorite books?

I should put something here, right, so this community isn't a completely deserted wasteland? (Imagine a howling wind sound effect plays here.) So, for any other fans out there, how did you encounter the series? Which books are your favorite?

I'll start. I saw this series mentioned several times in different places across the Internet before I actually read it. Once when Scott Alexander mentioned it on his old blog. For those who don't know him, he's a blogger who mainly writers nonfiction but has some really interesting short stories out there. There's a lot of Internet rationalists who seem to be obsessed with this series, or with AI utopias in general, and it's a fascinating detail I could go on about for a while, but that'd be derailing the topic probably.

There were a few mentions on r/whowouldwin (hey, don't look at me like that, some of the questions are pretty fun). Everyone there seemed to agree that the Culture was some epic leet OP civ that would curbstomp almost every other scifi setting. I'd be lying if I said that didn't pique my curiosity. Between that and mentions by other rationalists and a general interest in reading about fictional AIs, it was probably inevitable that I'd check it out sooner or later. Didn't hurt that the Wikipedia entry made it sound really interesting.

The first book I read was The Player of Games, because everybody said not to start with Consider Phlebas. After that, I was instantly obsessed. I read a bunch of Culture books in the next few days, no longer remember which ones or what order. My favorites are The Player of Games and Look to Windward, with Surface Detail a little further down. I honestly have mixed feelings on the plot/pacing of the other books, but the setting has always captivated me. It's so rare for a genuine utopia to exist in science fiction. Dystopias are much more common, or "utopias" that appear to be perfect but psych! There's actually a hidden catch that means it was a horrible miserable place all along! The Giver comes to mind.

Anyway, thoughts? What about you? Also welcome to Lemmy, on the off chance anyone even cares enough to see and respond to this, lol.