Not a Culture novel, Against a Dark Background is stand alone, which means that if you’ve never read Banks, this is probably a safe place to start. Change country: -Select- Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Azerbaijan Republic Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Islands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Cook Islands Costa Rica Cyprus Czech Republic Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia Gabon Republic Gambia Georgia Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Republic of Croatia Republic of the Congo Reunion Romania Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts-Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Suriname Swaziland Sweden Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands (U. Then we are treated to last bit of family drama, two or three more sudden reverses of fortune, and in the end Sharrow just runs after Geis to hunt him down, not even thinking to pick up the shiny plot gun lying around.

Feril thought the steam-driven automobile it had recently started rebuilding for the second time, the one wrecked when the apartment building (which it was also restoring again) had been blown up and tumbled into the street. The main character Sharrow is part of a noble family often involved in private wars within the system. Most of the system is a capitalist aristocracy where noble families fight private wars that sometimes involve nuclear weapons. The central character of Against a Dark Background is Sharrow, a noble in a distant future star system.Possibly self aware, when Lazy Guns feel they are being interfered with, they usually blow themselves up. Banks has experimented with non-linear stories to better effect before, such as in Use of Weapons, so I'll consider this an outlier. It felt a little guilty about focusing its abilities on the past rather than on the reconstruction that humans were presently so busily engaged in, but it felt a kind of pride as well, and besides knew that the reorganisation was something they had to do for themselves, for a variety of reasons.

It's less conceptual and more an adventure story than many of his other books - but it's a VERY good adventure story! Those accenting percussive sounds set in a different space, the atmospheric eeriness of dissonant breathy noise, and as always, those Stompy Fucking Drums!Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson Lady Sharrow was once the fearless leader of a combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the vicinity of the planet Golter. The biggest problem with this book, as in other early Banks novels, is that the author has more cool ideas than what fits in the page, so we got more a series of cool locales where something cool happens, before coolly moving to another weird event. That may well happen in this book but I have no idea what has happened so far as the book is very disjointed.