Against A Dark Background: Iain M. Banks

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His Culture novels, and indeed, his other SF books, take the same dizzying scales and ideas but the writing is so much better. She had yet another new name now, and Feril supposed that in a sense, the lady Sharrow really had died, somewhere between Molgarin's Keep - where the Huhsz had discovered what they'd assumed was her body - and the Sea House, where this slim, aging but still strong woman had left so much of her past buried and renounced.

The little girl skipped along the floor as they walked towards the exit, swinging this way and that on her mother's arm. here) but it's far more than that - it's a chance for Banks to play with notions of political and philosophical systems and futility - all sketched against that (very) Dark background.

Golter orbits a star which sits out in deep space, between galaxies, and they expressly don't have the technology to detect any aliens, let alone reach them. After leaving the tower, Sharrow is immobilised by a neural weapon and the clones appear, confiscate the Gun and take them both prisoner. The population of Golter was nearly wiped out ten thousand years ago; the past Decamillennium has been punctuated by any number of lesser wars which have nevertheless pocked the surface with wastelands and ruins.

It felt a little guilty about focusing its abilities on the past rather than on the reconstruction that humans were presently so busily engaged in, but it felt a kind of pride as well, and besides knew that the reorganisation was something they had to do for themselves, for a variety of reasons. This four-year-old, kneeling on the seat of the cable car, staring intently out at the mists and architecture of the city, was just one of half a million orphans Golter's last spasm of self-abuse had produced. It reminded me of Matter, where the big ideas/tech almost make the plot superfluous, but here, the plot has a little more substance. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. This certainly isn't Banks' best work but it's a Hell of a lot of fun and I enjoyed it so much I went back and re-read it from the beginning as soon as I finished it!I have been looking for a hardback 1st edition of this book and the example that I purchased is in almost mint condition, so I am very pleased. from the start I found it very difficult to follow what was going on and only until half way did I really get to grips with what was happening. The sky beyond the cliffs was filled with pale layered clouds which looked soft and clean and calm, while the mists below and behind the slowly rising car afforded hazy patchwork views of the canals, wharves and harbours of the city. 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.

With a dedicated team sharing a passion for speculative fiction, Orbit is committed to broadening the audience for SF and Fantasy. But like Feersum Endjinn and The Algebraist, Against a Dark Background not set in the Culture universe (or at least not within the galactic territory traversed by the Culture). The books featured on this site are aimed primarily at readers aged 13 or above and therefore you must be 13 years or over to sign up to our newsletter. It had a few moments of brilliance, and some really great ideas (the solipsists especially were fantastic), but it just went on and on and on with diversions and then ended, never adequately pulling itself together.Bookends: The online epilogue puts us back on a cable car, just like the one Sharrow's mother died on. Sharrow met her True Companions while serving in one such conflict: the Five Per Cent War, which was apparently fought over a tax hike. It's more fun to read than some, thanks to some larger-than-life Dickensian characters that leave lasting impressions: The blowhard old scholar Travapeth on Miykenns, the barbaric King Tard the 17th, the smugly ambitious bureaucrat Lebmellin, and above all, the solipsist Elson Roa. As for the Geiss-as-a-villain thing - to be honest, I thought that was obvious by about halfway through. her long golden hair undone and straggling to the waist of her slinky dress, her shoes off and held over one shoulder .

Before the novel started, Lady Sharrow and her team of four other treasure hunters purloined one from a temple of the Huhsz religious cult.They are conveyed to a desert stronghold and are presented to a man named Molgarin, who claims to be immortal.