anything in the culture series is pretty good so far. the problem is that the earth is actually, literally a prison planet for an unacceptable germ that spawns a planet of beings created to mine precious metals from their worlds and then assemble massive culture aversive mimetic/cyberfungal minds that exist only to dominate and replicate until they acheive a permaculture of complete universal expansion. we have been placed somewhere from which there is no escape so that we may exist and perhpas grow to the point to where we can be reaccepted into the culture, but until then, we are where there is no escape possible due to the limited resources and isolated nature of our situation in this total-hell-compared-to-other-worlds.
The culture is in contact with some individuals, and have revealed themselves. There is still no possible hope for escape at this time.