Culture Series Collection 10 Books Set by Iain M Banks Consider Phlebas, Excessio

  
The State of the Art. The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh.

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. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe. In the winter palace, the King's new physician has more enemies than she at first realises. In a world renowned within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war.

Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, the End Days for the Gzilt civilisation.