Iain M. Banks is best known to science fiction fans for his Culture novels, a far-future history that spans the galaxy. Matter, his big new SF novel, is the first Culture novel since Look to Windward, published in 2000. (2004's The Algebraist, a finalist on the Hugo ballot, is a fine book that shares many of the virtues of the Culture novels, but it is not set in the Culture.) The Culture, essentially Banks' vision of a “galaxy-spanning anarchist” utopia, takes a live-and-let-live attitude toward its own citizens and to outsiders. Recognizing its reluctance to meddle, but also recognizing the limits of laissez-faire in a universe of busybodies and bullies, the Culture names its intelligence and undercover operations unit Special Circumstances.

Banks usually has interesting settings but in Matter he outdoes himself. Most of the action takes place on Sursamen, a gigantic artificial planet made up of 17 different levels, most of them habitable (allowing for the fact that some creatures like oxygen, some like methane and some think a vacuum is just fine.). Each level hosts a different species of humans or aliens. Two rival species of aliens, the Oct and the Aultridia, control passage from one level to another. The planet is supervised by an intelligent, technologically advanced species, the Nariscene, who in turn are supervised by a superior, “mentor” species, the Morthanveld.

Things get off to a fast start on Level 8, where King Hausk, a conqueror in the Julius Caesar mold in a civilization whose technology approximates the sixteenth century on Earth, is secretly murdered during his latest successful battle by his trusted second-in-command, Mertis tyl Loesp. Loesp conceals the murder and becomes the regent, ostensibly until young prince Oramen can take over.

Hausk's daughter, Anaplian, has left the planet to become a Special Circumstances agent, but two of Hausk's sons stand in Loesp's path to total power: Oramen and his older brother, Fermin. There's plenty of suspense as both men struggle to stay alive. When Anaplian hears that her father is dead, she tries to go home to assist her brothers. The action takes a completely unexpected (but carefully foreshadowed) turn, but in fairness to the reader I cannot reveal more.

Readers of Banks' other Culture novels will recognize his exuberant stew of worlds (artificial and otherwise), spaceships, cultures and aliens. Matter includes an 18-page appendix of abbreviations, characters, full Culture names, species, terms, ships, levels of the artificial world Sursamen and time intervals. The “Species” section of the appendix lists forty-two different humanoid and alien species in alphabetical order.

Much of the political content of the book comes from Banks' ruminations on the proper use of power. The policy of the Culture (and also the other superior cultures in the book) is to mind its own business as much as possible toward the galaxy's “Third World.” Less-advanced planets are protected from utter disaster and from genocide but otherwise largely left alone.

Fermin, who naturally wants help in dealing with Loesp's tyranny, runs into this policy. A Nariscene leader explains, “Your own fates are allowed to remain your own. They are in a sense, within your own gift. Our gift is that already stated, of overarching care for the greater environment, that is to say the Shellworld Sursamen itself, and the protection of your good selves from undue and unwarranted interference, including —and this is the focus of my point—any undue and unwarranted interference we ourselves might be tempted to apply.”

But while the Culture is reluctant to use force unless it's necessary, responsible Culture members such as Anaplian know that pacifism isn't an option until everyone else renounces force, too. At one point, Anaplian is hectored by a pacifist who refuses to recognize that agents such as herself might be necessary, even when the universe is often “a terrible, utterly uncaring place and then people came along and added suffering and injustice to the place…” As she leaves him, Anaplian mutters, “We're all the fucking Peace Faction, you prick.”

In many places, Banks demonstrates his mastery of the rhetoric of power and empire, using bureaucratic phrases that sound both like the proclamations of the later Roman emperors and the press releases of the current American administration. At one point, when a Morthanveld leader decides to secretly deploy a powerful warship and a dozen smaller accompanying war craft to the middle of Sursamen, a provocative if well-intentioned move that goes awry, he calls it a “minor and purely preclusionary resource location adjustment.”

Banks also uses the plot to strike blows against sexism (Anaplian is the smartest and most promising of Hausk's children, as the Culture recognizes, although considered unfit to rule and expendable in her own society because she is a woman) and against inherited class structures (a lowly servant is more fit to rule on Level 8 than any of the book's royalty).

There's a passage in the book which could be read as a friendly in-joke directed toward the Libertarian Future Society; on page 369, Anaplian meets a mysterious, handsome fellow whose name includes the initials LP.

“LP?” she said. “The letters L and P?”

“The letters L and P,” he confirmed, with a small nod and mischievous smile.

“Do they stand for something?”

“They do. But it’s a secret.”

Banks is part of a group of three great left-wing Scottish science fiction authors who are writing many of the field's best novels these days; the other two, Charles Stross and Ken MacLeod, have won the Prometheus, but Banks is still waiting for his first Prometheus—and for that matter, his first Hugo. (For my money, he's the best SF writer never to win a major award.)

The science fiction world has more than a few good space opera novelists. I love Jack Vance, and everyone knows how good Vernor Vinge and Greg Bear are, but I think Banks is the best of all. If you want to argue with me, I would ask that you read Matter first.