Excession, by Iain M. BanksRead about another book on the list.
This is one of Banks' early Culture novels, which focuses a lot on the superintelligent Minds that run human culture with sarcastic benevolence. Like the robots in Isaac Asimov's I, Robot collection, who lead humanity into a world of unprecedented peace and prosperity, these Minds allow humans to goof around like idiots while they keep things running. Often implanted in Ships and Orbitals where humans live, these Minds are humanity's caretakers — but they also have their own, incomprehensibly complex business to deal with. In Excession, they discover a subspace anomaly that may be an intrusion from another universe. Only the Minds can fully comprehend such a thing, and even they are out of their depth.
Iain M. Banks' Culture novels appear on Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten book series so addictive, you never want them to end. Consider Phlebas, the first story in the Culture series, is one of Peter Millar's six favorite satires on despotism.
--Marshal Zeringue