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".
William Irwin (philosopher)
Irwin first theorized the philosophy and pop culture genre in his article “Philosophy as/and/of Popular Culture” in Irwin and Gracia eds. "Philosophy and the Interpretation of Popular Culture" (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 41–63. In 2010 he explained the motivation for the series and defended it against critics in an article in "The Philosophers’ Magazine" titled “Fancy Taking a Pop?” Irwin defended the style of the books in “Writing for the Reader: A Defense of Philosophy and Popular Culture Books”.