I actually watched it again the other day on TNT or something. Some parts of it are excruciatingly cheezy. He's this great author who writes some really excellent science-fiction. For some odd reason, it was hard to get his work in the u.s. for a while. I one of the books I have it says Not for sale in The United States .
Banks creates whole worlds.
Many of his books involve the same universe within a humanoid civilization known as The Culture. In the first book I read, Excession , many of the most fascinating characters are the giant spaceships who possess individual personalities. In some science fiction AI are quite usually boring. Adventures in Crime and Space . At Slashdot I saw a link to a really neat exhibit on the Library of Congress website.