Iain Banks

In 2024, a contestant on Mastermind chose for their Specialist Subject: “The Culture novels of Iain M Banks”

See how you do!

QUESTION 1
In the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, a sentient spaceship computer, known as a Mind, takes refuge in some ancient tunnels on which planet?

QUESTION 2
During the Idiran-Culture War, the Idirans are joined in combat by what other tripedal species, who distrust the growing power of the Culture?

QUESTION 3
In The Player of Games, Jernau Morat Gurgeh is a revered game-player who accepts an offer from Contact, a special division within the Culture, to take part in what complex game?

QUESTION 4
The starship Xenophobe, on which the Culture representative Diziet Sma travels in Use of Weapons, is a picket, or demilitarised Rapid Offensive Unit, of what class?

QUESTION 5
In Excession, a mysterious black sphere is investigated by a group of ship Minds who refer to themselves by what three-word name?

QUESTION 6
In the 2008 novel Matter, what's the name of the earl from Shilda who informs Prince Oramen of the deaths of his father and older brother in battle?

QUESTION 7
What name is given to the battle of the Idiran War which caused the astronomical event that the inhabitants of Masaq gather to watch, 803 years later, in Look to Windward?

QUESTION 8
The 1998 novel Inversions is told in two parallel narratives, one of which, entitled The Bodyguard, has a narrator who states, "I have chosen to tell the story after the fashion of the Jeritic fabulists, that is in the form of a... " what?

QUESTION 9
What's the name of the torus-shaped mansion, belonging to Joiler Veppers, the wealthy businessman and villain in the penultimate Culture novel, Surface Detail?

QUESTION 10
The final book in the Culture series, The Hydrogen Sonata, takes its title from a piece of classical music that's said to be almost impossible to play, and not much easier to listen to, written by which fictional composer?

QUESTION 11
While visiting the Empire of Azad, Gurgeh is taught how to play the game of elements, in which "blade cuts cloth, cloth wraps stone, stone dams water, water quenches fire" and fire... does what?