Book description
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. 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.
