Transition

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 organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?

On the Concern s books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there's the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.

“ 'Baroque, digressive, kinetic, teeming with big ideas and grand theories, it's a novel to get lost in . . . gripping - THE TIMES 'Stunning . . . tackles the issues of the responsibility of power, the moral implications of intervention and even the philosophical conundrum of what constitutes life itself. If only more contemporary fiction were like it . . . A book that makes you l - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'One of Iain Banks's most imaginative and compelling novels yet - SCOTSMAN”

'Baroque, digressive, kinetic, teeming with big ideas and grand theories, it's a novel to get lost in . . . gripping - THE TIMES

'Stunning . . . tackles the issues of the responsibility of power, the moral implications of intervention and even the philosophical conundrum of what constitutes life itself. If only more contemporary fiction were like it . . . A book that makes you l - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

'One of Iain Banks's most imaginative and compelling novels yet - SCOTSMAN

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.

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 organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?On the Concern s books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there's the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.

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