Excession is a 1996 science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks. It is the fifth in the Culture series, a series of ten science fiction novels which feature a utopian fictional interstellar society called the Culture. It concerns the response of the Culture and other interstellar societies to an unprecedented alien artifact, the Excession of the title.

Iain Banks was a Scottish author, writing mainstream fiction as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, adding the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies. After the success of The Wasp Factory (1984), he began to write full time. His first science fiction book, Consider Phlebas, appeared in 1987, marking the start of the Culture series. His books have been adapted for theatre, radio, and television. In 2008, The Times named Banks in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".