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Even paradise could become a prison if one had enough time
This story explores more about the Quietudinal Service (a.k.a. Quietus, as introduced in Surface Detail) and the circumstances in which it might be asked to involve itself in wider affairs. Quietus ships added the letters OAQS – for On Active Quietudinal Service – to their names while they were so employed, and usually took on a monochrome outer guise, either pure shining white in appearance or glossily black. It is sort-of a sequel to Rocks and Stars, in that some of the same characters re-appear. Even so, it can be read independently. Feretory, n, a container for relics. Please feel free to read and comment by email on the story.
Apart from being set in the same fictional universe, these three books share no characters or plot so they can all be read independently.
Phrontisterion explores the fate of a Group Mind composed mainly of rather grumpy retired Drones.
Butterfly Happiness explores the attitude of the Culture to the Sublime. Door Bell explores a meeting between a well-known author and an enigmatic visitor who seems to know more about the author's fiction than he does himself.
Never a Coincidence is a sequel to Unusual Circumstances and further investigates events at the very beginning of the Culture's existence.
Mind in the Making explores how new Culture Minds are created, and the activities of other Minds in supporting their development. 
Rocks and Stars follows the Culture's Quietudinal Service (Quietus) in action and explores what that organisation might do with the dead of other species. 
Artistic Expression explores what happens when the Culture is challenged by two powerful remnants of civilizations which have mostly Sublimed. Letters to an Alien introduces the Culture to a newly-Contacted society by means of letters between a young child and the local Culture representative. 
The Gaia Principle considers circumstances when the Culture's Contact section can - and cannot - intervene in the development of another society, regardless of how reprehensible the result might be. Retrospective State explores more of the actions and consequences of Culture ships during the early part of the Idiran war. 
Star Crossed is a slice-of-life story set in the Culture, albeit with a twist in the tale. Beneath the Ice explores how Culture Minds manipulate the presentation of data to minimise psychological damage both to individuals and to the society as a whole. 
Doing Enough explores more of the work of the Culture's Contact section and touches on the approaches which might be used to influence the development of more primitive civilizations where gross social inequalities remain. 
Vivarium Orbital examines the relationship between ordinary Culture citizens and the Minds which run their lives, and indeed the relationship with individuals from other species. 
Galactic Resurgence is a sequel to Galactic Recession and examines what happens when a large Culture craft arrives in a galaxy never before explored by the Culture. Care and Feeding is a story about life in the Culture, and how everyday life can sometimes be much more important than one might imagine. 
Recombinant Souls explores some of the implications of the Culture's ability to record, store and re-instantiate a person's mind-state, and what it might mean if there are two or more copies of an individual. 
Blimp City Blues describes the Culture's Contact section's approach to solving a crime on a gas giant planet when failure to do so might result in an inter-species war. A new story called An Exodus of Dragons explores the Culture's Contact section's interaction with a species living on a neutron star who think millions of times faster than humans.
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