The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, the End Days for the Gzilt civilisation. An ancient people, organised on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilisations: they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence. Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted - dead, not alive. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilisation are likely to prove its most perilous.
25 years after Banks's first Culture novel he is as exuberant, slyly funny and mind-stretchingly imaginative as ever SUNDAY TIMES
Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution- INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
Sharply satirical and packed with brilliant action scenes, this space opera proves British SF's big beard still plays the best tunes- BBC FOCUS
Author
About Iain M. Banks
Iain M. Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. He has since gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream (published under the name Iain Banks) and his science fiction novels. Iain Banks died in June 2013.
Maxim Jakubowski's view on MATTER... Banks’ Culture series, of which this the latest instalment, is space opera at its exuberant best: adventures and conflicts on a galactic scale, alien races by the dozen, non-stop action, a gallery of sharply-edged characters in search of the truth and racing against time. All the ingredients are perfectly stirred to provide first class entertainment and science fiction at its most stirring. Makes STAR WARS look simplistic.
