The Algebraist (Culture)

ISBN: 031656558X

Author: Banks, Iain M.

Condition: New

As complex, turbulent and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, this novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale.An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events. -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars.Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known.Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance. -William GibsonBanks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction. -The New York Times For More from Iain M. Banks, check out:The Culture series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsThe State of the ArtExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen Sonata