A Gift from the Culture
"A Gift from the Culture", published in 1987, is a short work of space opera, by the Scottish science fiction author Iain M. Banks. The story is an early venture into the "complex and unusual and very distant" setting of the Culture, which Banks would further develop through various of full length novels, stories, and his essay "A Few Notes on the Culture".
Kulturen
Kulturen was founded in 1892 by local historian, who also was the managing director until 1933. Karlin was a contemporary of Arthur Hazelius who had opened the open-air museum Skansen just a year before. Skansen had become the model for other open-air museums in Northern Europe.