Use Of Weapons

A stunning new reissue edition of the third Culture novel from Iain M. Banks - one of the most important and influential writers in modern science fiction.

The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action.

The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. 

The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past.

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.