Editing Excession (section)

===Banks' view of the Culture===
The book, more than any of the other Culture novels, focuses on the Culture's [[Mind (The Culture)|Minds]] as protagonists.

When asked about his focus on the possibilities of [[technology]] in [[fiction]], Banks said about the book:<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mitchell|first=Chris|date=3 September 1996|title=Iain Banks: Whit and Excession: Getting Used To Being God|url=https://spikemagazine.com/0996bank/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210314155056/https://spikemagazine.com/0996bank/|archive-date=14 March 2021|access-date=6 September 2021|website=Spike Magazine|language=en-US}}</ref>

{{blockquote|You can't escape the fact that humanity is a technological species, homo technophile or whatever the Latin is. Technology is neither good or bad, it's up to the user. We can't escape what we are, which is a technological species. There's no way back.|}}

The book shows a number of Minds acting in a decidedly non-benevolent way, somewhat qualifying the godlike incorruptibility and benevolence they are ascribed in other Culture novels. Banks himself has described the actions of some of the Minds in the novel as akin to "barbarian kings presented with the promise of gold in the hills."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=Chris|date=1 December 2001|title='Special Circumstances': Intervention by a Liberal Utopia|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03058298010300031601|journal=Millennium: Journal of International Studies|language=en|volume=30|issue=3|pages=625–633|doi=10.1177/03058298010300031601|s2cid=143328512 |issn=0305-8298}}</ref>