[AlotOfReading]

Unfortunately there really aren't any other books like the culture series. You might enjoy Banks' "The Algebraist" and the completely unrelated though similarly named "The Alchemist".

[yomismoaqui]

As I like how Banks writes and they are not directly related to The Culture they won't have to meet the expectations of the others I tried.

Thanks, will read them.

[AlotOfReading]

Only the first is written by Banks, to clear up any ambiguity. They're very different books, just similarly named.

[ozyschmozy]

After getting a hankering for more Culture books, I recently started going through his other fiction and they're all really fun and scratch a similar itch. I read Feersum Endjinn and The Algebraist, and I'm most of the way through Against a Dark Background now, and they're all great (and quite different from The Culture and each other)