The Idiran-Culture War has engulfed the galaxy. On one side, the Idirans - vast, tripedal, and religiously certain of their right to rule. On the other, the Culture - a sprawling machine-led civilisation whose benevolent Minds make decisions no biological species can fully comprehend. Caught between them is Bora Horza Gobuchul, a Changer who can alter his appearance to mimic anyone, working for the Idirans not out of faith but out of a deep conviction that the Culture's artificial intelligences represent an existential threat to all organic life. When a Culture Mind goes to ground on a dead world forbidden to both sides, Horza is sent to retrieve it - a mission that pulls him through a mercenary crew, a collapsing orbital, and a war that has no use for individual heroism. The first novel in Iain M. Banks' Culture series, and the rare space opera told from the point of view of a man fighting against utopia.
