Stuart

I simply cannot believe he was nowhere on this list. The Culture mo ela are by far the best world building sci fi series ever written and I have read all of the above with the exception of the Gene Wold novel. As I scrolled down I just kept expecting the next entry to be Iain M Banks but it never came. Dune was great although it got a bit heavy from God Emperor on. The new prequels are rather good too especially the Butlerian Jihad trilogy...

I read these sort of lists all the time but how can any acid fit epic worldbuilding list not included Iain M Banks Culture novels it is beyond a doubt the finest work of future society building ever written and should be in the Top 3. I have read all of Dune and listened to most of it again more recently on Audible. I read most of the above list when they were released except the Gene Wold offering which I am not sure why I have not read but may well address that shortcoming later but any list of this sort that does not include the Culture series loses much of its credibility with that single exception....

I am not sure how you can leave out Iain M Banks Culture series all of which are superb but in my opinion the best one is Excession. The re-readability value is also superb I myself have read it twice and listened to it once. I fully intend to listen to it again at some point as I do with Surface Detail and Look to Windward two more Culture novels by Mr Banks (note, all are stand alone and do not require reading of previous novels in the Culture series)