Novels by Iain Banks

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Commentary (novels not included). Pages: 23. Chapters: Novels by Iain M. Banks, The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road, Consider Phlebas, Excession, The Player of Games, Espedair Street, Use of Weapons, Whit, Look to Windward, Inversions, Dead Air, Feersum Endjinn, Against a Dark Background, Matter, The Bridge, Surface Detail, The Algebraist, Transition, Complicity, The Business, Walking on Glass, A Song of Stone, The Steep Approach to Garbadale, Canal Dreams. Excerpt: Inversions is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1998. It is implied to be set in his Culture universe. However, this is not made explicit within the book, and unlike most other recent editions of Banks' science fiction novels, does not carry the tag 'A Culture Novel' on the cover. Banks has said "Inversions was an attempt to write a Culture novel that wasn't." The book takes place on a fictional planet based on late-Middle Ages Europe. It alternates chapter-by-chapter between two concurrent storylines. The first storyline is presented as a written account from Oelph, publicly a doctor's assistant, but privately a spy for an individual identified only as "Master," to whom much of the account is addressed. Oelph is the assistant to Vosill, the personal doctor to King Quience of Haspidus and a woman. The latter is unheard of in the patriarchal kingdom, and is tolerated only because Vosill claims citizenship in the far-off country of Drezen. The King himself is appreciative of her and her talents, but nonetheless her elevated position in defiance of the kingdom's social mores inspires hostility among others of the court. Oelph's account follows Vosill as she attends to the King regularly, as well as more charitable ministrations to the impoverished and those in need. Her methods are unconventional by kingdom standards, for example...