A superb standalone novel from the awesome imagination of Iain M. Banks, a master of modern science fiction
A science fiction novel in which the chief scientist in an alien castle receives an urgent summons on the day that his master dies.
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Summary
A superb standalone novel from the awesome imagination of Iain M. Banks, a master of modern science fiction
A science fiction novel in which the chief scientist in an alien castle receives an urgent summons on the day that his master dies.
Description
Count Sessine is about to die for the very last time...Chief Scientist Gadfium is about to receive the mysterious message she has been waiting for from the Plain of Sliding Stones...And Bascule the Teller, in search of an ant, is about to enter the chaos of the crypt...And everything is about to change...For this is the time of the encroachment and, 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, yet sill they prosecute the war against the clan Engineers with increasing savagery. The crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent, an emissary who holds the key to all their futures.
Awards
Winner of British Science Fiction Association Award 1995
Winner of British Science Fiction Association Award 1994
Critic Reviews
“Sharp, witty, comprehensively terrifying.”
'Dazzlingly original' Daily Mail, 'An exquisitely riotous tour de force of the imagination which writes its own rules simply for the pleasure of breaking them' Time Out, 'Banks is a phenomenon: the wildly successful, fearlessly creative author of brilliant and disturbing non-genre novels, he's equally at home writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance' William Gibson, 'Sharp, witty, comprehensively terrifying' Observer
About the Author
Iain 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 and his science fiction novels.
Count Sessine is about to die for the very last time ...Chief Scientist Gadfium is about to receive the mysterious message she has been waiting for from the Plain of Sliding Stones ...And Bascule the Teller, in search of an ant, is about to enter the chaos of the crypt ...And everything is about to change ...For this is the time of the encroachment and, 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, yet sill they prosecute the war against the clan Engineers with increasing savagery. The crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent, an emissary who holds the key to all their futures.
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