Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743421922
Category : Caste
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
Eight hundred years after the most horrific battle of the Idiran war, light from its world-destroying detonations is about to reach the Masaq Orbital, home to the Culture. Major Quilan has supposedly come to take the exiled Composer Ziller back to their war-ravaged home world, Chel. But despite the major's civilized veneer, his true mission may be the death and destruction of an entire civilization.
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439108498
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
This “sophisticated space opera” (The New York Times), filled with suspense and humor, masterfully explores the horrors of war—from the acclaimed author of The Wasp Factory. The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of the Idiran war—and one of the most horrific. Desperate to avert their inevitable defeat, the Idirans had induced not one but two suns to explode, snuffing out worlds and biospheres teeming with sentient life. They were attacks of incredible proportion—gigadeathcrimes. But the war ended, and life went on. Now, eight hundred years later, light from the first explosion is about to reach the Masaq’ Orbital, home to the Culture’s most adventurous and decadent souls. There it will fall upon Masaq’s 50 billion inhabitants, gathered to commemorate the deaths of the innocent and to reflect, if only for a moment, on what some call the Culture’s own complicity in the terrible event. Also journeying to Masaq’ is Major Quilan, an emissary from the war-ravaged world of Chel. In the aftermath of the conflict that split his world apart, most believe he has come to Masaq’ to bring home Chel’s most brilliant star and self-exiled dissident, the honored Composer Ziller. Ziller claims he will do anything to avoid a meeting with Major Quilan, who he suspects has come to murder him. But the Major’s true assignment will have far greater consequences than the death of a mere political dissident, as part of a conspiracy more ambitious than even he can know—a mission his superiors have buried so deeply in his mind that even he cannot remember it. Hailed by SFX Magazine as “an excellent hopping-on point if you’ve never read a Banks science fiction novel before”, Look to Windward is an awe-inspiring immersion into the wildly original, vividly realized civilization that Banks calls the Culture.
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0748110038
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 325
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Book Description
The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre. 'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson It was one of the less glorious incidents of a long-ago war. It led to atrocities on an extraordinary scale. To the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported. Now, eight hundred years later, the light from the first of those doomed stars has reached the Culture Orbital, Masaq', bathing its fifty billion inhabitants in the rays of their society's ancient mistake. Amongst them is Major Quilan, sent on a mission so secret that not even he knows what it is, and determined to exact his revenge against the Culture at any cost. Praise for the Culture series: 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata The State of the Art Other books by Iain M. Banks: Against a Dark Background Feersum Endjinn The Algebraist Also now available: The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316095834
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 560
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Book Description
The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination. The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982156104
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
Originally published: London: Orbit, 1998.
Author: Simone Caroti
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476620407
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
This critical history of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels covers the series from its inception in the 1970s to the The Hydrogen Sonata (2012), published less than a year before Banks’ death. It considers Banks’ origins as a writer, the development of his politics and ethics, his struggles to become a published author, his eventual success with The Wasp Factory (1984) and the publication of the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas (1987). His 1994 essay “A Few Notes on the Culture” is included, along with a range of critical responses to the 10 Culture books he published in his lifetime and a discussion of the series’ status as utopian literature. Banks was a complex man, both in his everyday life and on the page. This work aims at understanding the Culture series not only as a fundamental contribution to science fiction but also as a product of its creator’s responses to the turbulent times he lived in.
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 031604072X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
A novel of dazzling wit and serious purpose. An extraordinary feat of storytelling and breathtaking invention on a grand scale, it is a tour de force from a writer who has turned science fiction on its head. "Unexpectedly savage, emotionally powerful, and impossible to forget." —The Times In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one — maybe two — people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever. Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has changed almost beyond recognition to become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilizations throughout the greater galaxy. Concealing her new identity — and her particular set of abilities — might be a dangerous strategy, however. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata
Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 144818343X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
A fascinating journey through Scotland's famous distilleries with legendary author Iain Banks No true Scotsman can resist the allure of the nation's whisky distilleries. In an absorbing voyage as interesting to non-drinkers as to true whisky connoisseurs, sci-fi and literary author Iain Banks explores the rich heritage of Scottish whisky, from the largest and most famous distilleries to the smallest, most obscure operations. Whisky is more than a drink: it's a culture, a binder that joins together people, places and products far across Scotland's rugged terrain. Switching from cars to ferries to bicycles, Banks crisscrosses his homeland, weaving an engrossing narrative from the strange people, fascinating traditions, and downright bizarre places he encounters on his journey down Scotland's great golden road.
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316068799
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past. Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, Use of Weapons is a masterpiece of science fiction. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata
Author: Iain M. Banks
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316075965
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 343
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Book Description
There is a world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organization with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? Among those operatives are Temudjin Oh, of mysterious Mongolian origins, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice under snow; Adrian Cubbish, a restlessly greedy City trader; and a nameless, faceless state-sponsored torturer known only as the Philosopher, who moves between time zones with sinister ease. Then there are those who question the Concern: the bandit queen Mrs. Mulverhill, roaming the worlds recruiting rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, under sedation and feigning madness in a forgotten hospital ward, in hiding from a dirty past. There is a world that needs help; but whether it needs the Concern is a different matter.
