IAIN M. BANKS

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first Culture novel, CONSIDER PHLEBAS, in 1987, this boxed set contains the first three books in the bestselling 'Culture' series.

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre. "Banks is a phenomenon." William Gibson Count Sessine is about to die for the very last time . . . Chief Scientist Gad­fium is about to receive the mysterious message she has been awaiting from the Plain of Sliding Stones . . . Bascule the Teller, in search of an ant, is about to enter the chaos of the crypt . . . This is the time of the encroachment and everything is about to change. Although the dimming sun still shines on the vast, towering walls of Serehfa Fastness, the end is close at hand. The King knows it, his closest advisers know it, and the crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent - an emissary who holds the key to all their futures. Praise for the novels of Iain M. Banks: "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 Books by Iain M. Banks: 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 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.

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 Two and a half millennia ago in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe, the artifact appeared. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared. Now it is back. Diplomat Genar-Hofoen of Special Circumstances is sent to investigate but, sidetracked by an old flame and the spoiled-brat operative Ulver Seich, and faced with the systematic depravities of a race who call themselves the A­ffront, it's anyone's guess whether he'll succeed . . . 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 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.

Mikä on oikeutettu sota? Mitä tapahtuu sille, joka käyttää aseita - ja mikä on ase? Kulttuuri-sarjan kolmas osa.Kirjan päähenkilö Cheradenine Zakalwe työskentelee agenttina Kulttuurin erityisolojen jaoksessa. Se on eräänlainen salainen palvelu, joka suorittaa salaisia ja jopa moraalisesti arveluttavia tehtäviä Kulttuurin päämäärien ajamiseksi. Kulttuuri taas on jonkinlainen yleisgalaktinen YK, joka pyrkii tuomaan rauhaa ja hyvinvointia galaksiin.Iain M. Banksin romaanit ovat pysyvästi muuttaneet käsitystämme scifistä. Koko 1990-luvulla suomeksi ilmestynyt sarja julkaistaan nyt Ville Keynäksen täysin uudistettuina suomennoksina.Iain M. Banks (1954-2013) oli skotlantilainen kirjailija. Erityisen tunnettu Banks on Kulttuuri-sarjastaan. Sen lisäksi hän on kirjoittanut muun muassa dekkareita. Kulttuuri-sarjan faniksi on julistautunut muun muassa Amazonin perustaja Jeff Bezos.”Banksin tausta 'oikeana' ja korkeakulttuurin vakavasti ottamana kirjailijana näkyy tavassa kirjoittaa älyllistä ja haastavaa, mutta samalla rennosti kulkevaa lausetta.” - Helsingin Sanomat

From New York Times bestselling and modern master of science fiction, Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art is the acclaimed collection of Banks's short fiction. "Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance." -William Gibson This is a striking addition to the body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks's staggering talent. "Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth." -New York Review of Science Fiction " Banks] can summon up sense-of-wonder Big Concepts you've never seen before and display them with narration as deft as a conjuror's fingers." -scifi.com 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

As complex, turbulent and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, this novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale. "An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events." -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known. "Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance." -William Gibson "Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction." -The New York TimesFor More from Iain M. Banks, check out: 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

An engrossing portrait of an alien world and two very different people bound by a startling and mysterious secret from the internationally bestselling author of The Player of Games and Consider Phlebas Iain M. Banks. On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy reports on the doings of one Dr. Vosill, who has mysteriously become the personal physician to the king despite being a foreigner and, even more unthinkably, a woman. Vosill has more enemies than she first realizes. But she also has more remedies in hand than those who wish ill can ever guess. Elsewhere, in another palace across the mountains, a man named DeWar serves as chief bodyguard to the Protector General of Tassasen, a profession he describes as the business of "assassinating assassins." DeWar, too, has his enemies, but his foes strike more swiftly, and his means of combating them are more direct. No one trusts the doctor, and the bodyguard trusts no one, but is there a hidden commonality linking their disparate histories? Spiraling around a central core of mystery, deceit, love, and betrayal, Inversions is a dazzling work of science fiction from "a talent to be reckoned with" (Locus Magazine) at the height of his remarkable powers.

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.

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 War rages across the galaxy. Billions have died, billions more are doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, face cold-blooded, brutal destruction. The Idirans ­fight for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles are at stake. There can be no surrender.Within this cosmic conflict, a crucial battle of wits is waged. Deep within a fabled labyrinth, on a Planet of the Dead forbidden to mortals, lies a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans desperately seek it. It is the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, to actually ­find it - and with it their own destruction. 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'Banks's sci-fi, at its best, is staggeringly inventive, beautifully written, dramatic and often very funny. His stories are packed with ideas, warships with minds very much of their own, alien races, charismatic drones and intergalactic politics' New Scientist 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday TelegraphThe Culture series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtOther books by Iain M. Banks:Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso 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.

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 The man known as Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action.Though the woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and aided his stratospheric rise, she did not know him as well as she thought.The drone Ska­ffen-Amtiskaw thought it knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers, and it believed the man to be a burnt-out wreck - but not even its superlative machine-intelligence could see the horrors in his past. 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'Banks's sci-fi, at its best, is staggeringly inventive, beautifully written, dramatic and often very funny. His stories are packed with ideas, warships with minds very much of their own, alien races, charismatic drones and intergalactic politics' New Scientist'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 SonataThe 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.

The works of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson The State of the Art is the only collection of Iain M. Banks's short ­fiction and includes the acclaimed Culture novella of the same name.From science ­fiction to horror, dark fantasy to twisted comedy, all eight stories bear the inde­finable stamp of Banks's staggering talent.Praise for the novels of Iain M. Banks:'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 novels of Iain M. Banks: The Culture seriesConsider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtOther books by Iain M. BanksAgainst a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso 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.

A stunning new reissue edition of Matter - a space opera of stunning power and awesome imagination, from the modern master of science fiction, Iain M. Banks

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 The "War in Heaven", a simulated war game, rages between civilisations. Its virtual battles have been fought for decades, and the victors will decide the fate of the digital Hells - torturous artificial afterlives with horrors beyond imagination.In the Sichultian Enablement, Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit.As the virtual war threatens to spill into the Real, Y'breq is willing to risk everything for her freedom - but she'll need the Culture, and its help comes at a price. The Culture is going to war with death itself.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 PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtOther books by Iain M. Banks:Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso 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.

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson Lady Sharrow was once the fearless leader of a combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the vicinity of the planet Golter. Now she is hunted by the Huhsz - a religious cult hellbent on assassinating her - and her only hope of escape is to ­find the last of the apocalyptically powerful Lazy Guns before the Huhsz track her down.Her journey through the exotic Golterian system is a destructive and savage odyssey into her past, and that of her family and of the system itself.Praise for the novels of Iain M. Banks:'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 Books by Iain M. Banks:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtAgainst a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso 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.

A stunning new reissue edition of The Algebraist - a space opera of stunning power and awesome imagination, from the modern master of science fiction, Iain M. Banks

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 The Culture - a utopian human-machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many expert Game Players, and one of the greatest is Jernau Morat Gurgeh. He is Master of every board, computer and strategy - he is The Player of Games.Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the cruel and incredibly wealthy Empire of Azad to try their infamous game . . . a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh plays the game, and faces the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death. 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'Banks's sci-fi, at its best, is staggeringly inventive, beautifully written, dramatic and often very funny. His stories are packed with ideas, warships with minds very much of their own, alien races, charismatic drones and intergalactic politics' New Scientist 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday TelegraphThe Culture series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtOther books by Iain M. Banks:Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso 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.