Product Description

Sharrow was once the leader of a personality-attuned combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the civilisation based around the planet Golter. Now she is hunted by the Huhsz, a religious cult which believes that she is the last obstacle before the faith's apotheosis, and her only hope of escape is to find the last of the apocalyptically powerful Lazy Guns before the Huhsz find her. Her journey through the exotic Golterian system is a destructive and savage odyssey into her past, and that of her family and of the system itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9355 in Books
• Published on: 1995-01-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Review
'Banks ain't kidding. He warned you up front that this is a dark novel' Norman Spinrad 'Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth' The New York Review of Science Fiction 'There is now no British SF writer to whose work I look forward with greater keenness' The Times

From the Publisher
Praise for Iain M. Banks

‘There is now no British SF writer to whose work I look forward to with such keenness’ THE TIMES

‘Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth’ THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION

‘Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy - the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more’ NME

‘Banks is a phenomenon: the wildly successful, fearlessly creative author of brilliant and disturbing non-genre novels, he’s equally at home writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance’ WILLIAM GIBSON

Also by Iain M. Banks

Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Feersum Endjinn Excession Inversions Look to Windward

About the Author
Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. He has since gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream and his science fiction novels.

Customer Reviews

My all time favourite Banks...a true desert island book...
My copy of this book is well worn; I no longer let it leave the house, despite the fact that I have found few people as fanatical about it. Why does it grab me so? The title says it all -- it is a true, dark piece of science fiction. Heros die. Love goes unrequited. Revenge is spiteful and slow in building. This is dark pathos woven in and around what could have been a very protected and innocent life. It is the tale of corruption, of loss, of bitter-sweet victories set against the near comic backdrop of desire, tragedy and a good-ole treasure hunt.

The fact that this is not a Culture novel is at the core of Banks' creativity. He has kept the scale within a solar system, invented from scratch the history, politics, religion, militia and sociology of a corner of the universe. That, in it's intimate nature, makes the story all the more believable.

Read this book many times. --->> Aim Here <<---

An enjoyable journey, but a mediocre destination....
'Against A Dark Background' is the tale of a woman forced to find a mythical reality-warping weapon before she can be executed by a crazed religious cult. Iain (M) Banks 4th science fiction novel is his first not to be set in his 'Culture' series of novels, though there are a few surface similarities with 'Consider Phlebas' as this is another novel featuring a group of trigger-happy mercenaries on the trail of a powerful artefact. Essentially a quest novel, 'Against a Dark Background' is full of striking science fiction imagery (city-sized plant-life; a monastery where the inhabitants are chained to the walls; a backwards God-hating society), compelling characters (particularly the heroine and her poisonous relationship with her half-sister, and a rather lovable robot who joins the adventure looking for new experiences), a twisty plot, and a suprising amount of humour. Unfortunately however it doesn't quite add up to a satisfactory whole, with the climax complete with a rather cheesy melodramatic villain and an over-complex plot, but for fans of well-written action-packed science fiction there is plenty of enjoyment to be had along the way. Slightly less than the sum of it's parts, this is an enjoyable tale but not quite up to Banks best work.

Amazing depth
This is one of my favourite Banks novels. The storyline carried me away through the book, through an amazingly detailed violent, varied and gripping world. The depth of the background, the locations, and the characters is impressive. I just couldn't stop reading it! The ending is extremely impressive and dark. Very satisfying.