The Algebraist

<B>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.</B><BR/><BR/> “An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events.” –<I>Publishers Weekly</I> (Starred Review) <BR/><BR/> 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.<BR/><BR/> 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.<BR/><BR/> 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. <P> “Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance.” –William Gibson </P><P> “Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction.” –<I>The New York Times</I></P><I><U>For More from Iain M. Banks, check out:</U></I><BR/><BR/><B>The Culture series:</B><BR/><I>Consider Phlebas<BR/> The Player of Games<BR/> Use of Weapons<BR/> The State of the Art<BR/> Excession<BR/> Inversions<BR/> Look to Windward<BR/> Matter<BR/> Surface Detail<BR/> The Hydrogen Sonata</I>