The State Of The Art

A stunning new reissue edition of The State of the Art – a collection of short stories of stunning power and awesome imagination from Iain M. Banks, one of the most important and influential writers in modern science fiction.The first ever collection of Iain M. Banks’s short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks’s staggering talent.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 TelegraphThe Culture series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtOther books by Iain M. Banks:Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso 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.

Reviews of The State Of The Art

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 perculiarly gnarly energy and elegance * William Gibson * There is now no British SF writer to whose work I look forward with greater keenness * THE TIMES * Poetic, humourous, baffling, terrifying, sexy – the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more * NME *