I quite like space operas with aliens with funny names and laser guns and stuff, it just seemed to take itself a bit too seriously but without the believability of something like Larry Niven
I think the believability is what I liked about the culture books. It's way out there, but i had a sense of it being pretty much how a post-resource space faring society might be. A lot of authors can't break free of contemporary context in the way Banks can.
I quite like space operas with aliens with funny names and laser guns and stuff, it just seemed to take itself a bit too seriously but without the believability of something like Larry Niven