It's especially infuriating what they did to Altered Carbon when you consider how much of the changes do not add anything to the adaptation (although a very few were improvements, like Poe); quite the reverse. They also completely castrated the books' political message - especially when it came to religion, and to a lower extent anti-capitalism/centralization.

That being said, I imagine it still makes for a watchable show for someone that knows nothing about the books.

In any case, I love both series and I pray dearly they don't fuck up the Culture adaptation.

I'm hoping they don't respect the plot too much, and improve it instead. Consider Phlebas was by far the worst of the three Culture books I have read so far. It had elements of a great story but IMHO was badly in need of an editor to polish the narrative.

Man, I would really like Use of Weapons on TV just to see all the different environments. But I feel like it had probably too challenging of a format to bode well for an adaptation.

Audiences love bad guys, right? :)