I also love both authors and I cringe at the Banks diehard fanboys who put his vanilla biscuits on a pedestal. I’m about to go pick up Algebraist, maybe he’ll surprise me. The Culture is fun I like it, not the best or end all though. I prefer JSAC’s prose and plot lines and Reynold’s concepts far more than Banks, which again I do enjoy. Just not my fav. To each their own and I do take offense at the silly comparison NoNo above, that’s just dumb. And nowhere close to accurate, IMO.