A stunning new reissue edition of The Hydrogen Sonata - a space opera of stunning power and
awesome imagination from Iain M. Banks one of the most important and influential writers in
modern science fiction. The Scavenger species are circling. It is truly the End Days for the
Gzilt civilisation. An ancient people organised 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
civilisations: 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
civilisation are likely to prove its most perilous. Praise for the Culture series '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 The Culture
series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to
WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen Sonata The State of the Art Other books by Iain M.
Banks: Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe Algebraist Also now available: The Culture:
The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from
sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s depicting the ships habitats geography weapons
and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.
