We use cookies to customise content, provide social media features and to analyse traffic to this website. To confirm you are happy with this and want to continue exploring our site, please click here. For more detailed information, read our cookie usage guide.

Written by .

Surface Detail (The Culture book 9)
Tags:
This is rated 9 out of 10 with 1 vote.

It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.

Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture.

It begins in the realm of the Real. It begins with a murder.

And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.

(no subject)

Review by on

I've read a a few of these before, with mixed results. Some have been Space Operatic joy from start to end, while others have been an effort to finish.
Surface Detail is definitely the first, combining abstract space battles and political machinations with some philosophical questions about Hell, Virtual Reality and interfering in the beliefs of other cultures. There's also a nice old-fashioned revenge subplot.

If you like SciFi and want to take it up a gear, this is well-worth reading, even if you haven't read so many of his other books.