Excession
Iain M. Banks
(Author)
This title will be released on:
Nov 11, 2025
Description
"Banks is a phenomenon." -- William Gibson
Two and a half millennia ago in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe, the artifact appeared.
It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared.
Now it is back.
Diplomat Genar-Hofoen of Special Circumstances is sent to investigate but, sidetracked by an old flame and the spoiled-brat operative Ulver Seich, and faced with the systematic depravities of a race who call themselves the Affront, it's anyone's guess whether he'll succeed . . .
Praise for the Culture series:
"Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution." -Independent on Sunday
"Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future." -Guardian
"Jam-packed with extraordinary invention." -Scotsman
"Compulsive reading." -Sunday Telegraph
The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
The State of the Art
Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist
Also now available:
The Culture: The Drawings- an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.
Product Details
| Publisher | Orbit |
| Publish Date | November 11, 2025 |
| Pages | 464 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780316595063 |
| Dimensions | 8.3 X 5.5 X 1.2 inches | 0.0 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events."
--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on The Algebraist"[Banks] can summon up sense-of-wonder Big Concepts you've never seen before and display them with narration as deft as a conjuror's fingers." --scifi.com
"Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future."--The Guardian
"Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance."--William Gibson
"Banks never lets up in a dizzying array of characters, mind-bending ideas, and dazzling action."--Booklist
"Banks writes space opera on the grand scale: he measures time in eons, space in lightyears, tragedies in gigadeaths."--Time
"Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction."--The New York Times
"Compulsive reading."--Sunday Telegraph
"Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution."--Independent on Sunday
"Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth."--New York Review of Science Fiction
"Jam-packed with extraordinary invention."--Scotsman
"Nobody does it better."--Times (UK)
Earn by promoting books
