This "sophisticated space opera" (The New York Times), filled with
suspense and humor, masterfully explores the horrors of war--from the
acclaimed author of The Wasp Factory.
The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of the Idiran war--and
one of the most horrific. Desperate to avert their inevitable defeat,
the Idirans had induced not one but two suns to explode, snuffing out
worlds and biospheres teeming with sentient life. They were attacks of
incredible proportion--gigadeathcrimes. But the war ended, and life went
on.
Now, eight hundred years later, light from the first explosion is about
to reach the Masaq' Orbital, home to the Culture's most adventurous and
decadent souls. There it will fall upon Masaq's 50 billion inhabitants,
gathered to commemorate the deaths of the innocent and to reflect, if
only for a moment, on what some call the Culture's own complicity in the
terrible event.
Also journeying to Masaq' is Major Quilan, an emissary from the
war-ravaged world of Chel. In the aftermath of the conflict that split
his world apart, most believe he has come to Masaq' to bring home Chel's
most brilliant star and self-exiled dissident, the honored Composer
Ziller.
Ziller claims he will do anything to avoid a meeting with Major Quilan,
who he suspects has come to murder him. But the Major's true assignment
will have far greater consequences than the death of a mere political
dissident, as part of a conspiracy more ambitious than even he can
know--a mission his superiors have buried so deeply in his mind that
even he cannot remember it.
Hailed by SFX Magazine as "an excellent hopping-on point if you've
never read a Banks science fiction novel before", Look to Windward is
an awe-inspiring immersion into the wildly original, vividly realized
civilization that Banks calls the Culture.
