Iain Banks was recently named in these pages as one of the 50 Greatest British Writers since 1945 - but not Iain M. Banks, although they're the same person. He puts on the initial when he's writing science fiction. Writers from Margaret Atwood to Jeanette Winterson have dipped into the genre while arguing that what they write isn't really science fiction, but Banks is a fan, who writes space opera because he loves it.

Space opera is a term coined in the 1940s, originally a pejorative for clichéd, badly written tales of derring-do and romance in space. In the late 1970s, thanks largely to Star Wars, it became a fairytale for our times, and the term was used affectionately and without irony.

Yet there remained something nostalgic and old-fashioned about this sub-genre - an easy target for parody in Douglas Adams's The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - until 1987, and the publication of Banks's first novel about the Culture, Consider Phlebas.

Formerly, space opera was dominated by American writers, politically on the right wing, and based on the assumption that, even in the distant future, the same old models of conquest and domination would prevail, with a US (or EU)-like federation constantly battling against an evil empire.

Banks overturned all that, imagining a utopian, post-scarcity future in which individual freedom is an absolute, no one wants for anything, and civilisation - the Culture - is maintained by powerful and benevolent artificial intelligences known as Minds.

To write a gripping story set in Utopia is notoriously difficult: drama requires conflict, the one thing the perfect society cannot supply. The author's solution in Matter, as in previous books, is to bring members of the Culture into contact with other, less-evolved civilisations - for the Universe is a vast place, containing millions of species, some of which seem as bent on self-destruction as are we.

Matter revolves around Sursamen, an artificial planet called a Shellworld, that holds a race of human beings known as Sarl. They lead a feudal, pre-modern existence on the eighth level of their hollow world, aware of the Culture and other intelligent species out among the stars, but not really interested in much beyond waging war on their nearest neighbours. But when Prince Ferbin witnesses the murder of the King, his father, by his trusted adviser, he decides his best hope lies off planet, with his half-sister, Djan: “Who was raised to be fit to marry a prince and then found herself dowried to the mongrel alien empire that calls itself the Culture.”

Djan Seriy Anaplian was traded by her father to the Culture in payment of a debt of honour. For her, it was an escape from boredom into power beyond her wildest dreams, and she never wanted to go back. But as she learns of her father's death, she feels duty-bound to return, even at the cost of relinquishing most of her superhuman powers. Far more than her family is at stake; gradually it becomes apparent that Sursamen harbours an ancient and deadly secret.

The Shellworld, built for unknown reasons by a long-vanished race, home now not only to the Sarl but to another being, worshipped by them as their Worldgod, is a terrific creation, vividly depicted, guaranteed to send a thrill of delight through every true fan. Also memorable is the Nameless City beneath the Falls, where a menacing black cube dubbed the Sarcophagus is found. The usual ingredients of a Culture novel are all here: lots of action, snippy drones, believ-able people, bizarre aliens, extreme violence, awesome weapons, silly names and sly jokes. (I suspect the appendix full of lists is one of the latter.)

Missing is some of the complexity and the games with narrative structure that distinguished earlier books. There are multiple-viewpoint characters, but for much of its length the narrative is excessively concerned with the detailed travel arrangements required to bring most of them together. Ultimately, though, the journey is worth it. The conclusion is unexpectedly savage, emotionally powerful, and impossible to forget. Matter, it turns out, is not so much about the physical stuff as it is about what truly matters.

Matter, by Iain M. Banks
Orbit, £18.99

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