Use of Weapons – Iain M. Banks
The third Culture Novel, wherein the weapon is a not particularly nice person.
Fiction
Osama – Lavie Tidhar
Did you ever wish Philip K Dick sucked a little less? Well do I have news for you!
The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
Second Culture novel was as good as the first
The File on H – Ismail Kadare
A funny short novel of the ‘strangers come to town’ variety by Albanian writer Ismail Kadare
The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch
A fantasy novel set in a fantasy Venice, with what feels like a pretty good feeling for what medieval Venice was like
Consider Phlebas – Iain M. Banks
Consider Phlebas is the first Culture novel. It seems pretty light on Culture.
Afterparty – Daryl Gregory
As it were, sometimes the intersection of science-fiction and religion CAN be interesting
The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell
There seems to be a lot of weird overlap between science-fiction and religion. I don’t think it always ends well though
The Humans – Matt Haig
A book whose story may be a metaphor for… something
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
There is an anecdote about the acclaimed film director Stanley Kubrick that goes as follows: when Kubrick told a friend
Failures in Polymathy 