Do you find it hard to "visualize" Banks' writing? I read Consider Phlebas and I'm part way through Player of Games right now, but it takes me forever* to get through these books because I feel lost and can't make a mental picture of wtf is going on. The Culture series reminds me a lot of Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series, but I had no trouble wrapping my mind around Reynolds' far-future setting. Is there a book somewhere in the middle of the Culture series that I should start with to get a better description of his universe?