Book description
The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, the End Days for the
Gzilt civilization.
An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost
perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand
years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies,
deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the
collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other
civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new
and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.
Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed.
Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been
involved, and she is now wanted - dead, not alive. Aided only by an
ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont
must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She
must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand
years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time
ago. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely
to prove its most perilous. 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. Iain
lives in Fife, Scotland.
