The big news today is that Amazon announced it’s bought the rights to Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks’s Culture novel. I’m still surprised (no, not really) that Banks never won a Hugo Award for any of his Culture novels, as they are pure SF through and through. The novel will be turned into a series, and likely if successful will spawn adaptations of other novels. Alas, Feersum Endjinn isn’t a Culture novel, but still one of my favorite Banks books, as well as the non-M mainstream novel, Whit.