The Hydrogen Sonata

Iain M. Banks

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Orbit Books
12 March 2024

Science fiction; Science Fiction

Series: Culture

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.

'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson

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. 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 in finitely more rich and complex existence.

But, amid preparations, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Vyr Cossont, a former soldier for the Gzilt, 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 a

final mission; she must

find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might just hold the key to understanding what happened . . .

The

final days of the Gzilt civilisation may 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 Phlebas

The Player of Games

Use of Weapons

Excession

Inversions

Look to Windward

Matter

Surface Detail

The Hydrogen Sonata

The State of the Art

Other books by Iain M. Banks:

Against a Dark Background

Feersum Endjinn

The 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.

By: Iain M. Banks
Imprint: Orbit Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 196mm, Width: 128mm, Spine: 44mm
Weight: 440g
ISBN: 9780356521725
ISBN 10: 0356521729
Series: Culture
Pages: 640
Publication Date: 12 March 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Iain Banks (1954-2013) came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.

Reviews for The Hydrogen Sonata

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 perculiarly gnarly energy and elegance * William Gibson * There is now no British SF writer to whose work I look forward with greater keenness * THE TIMES * Poetic, humourous, baffling, terrifying, sexy - the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more * NME *