Look to Windward

Among the most terrible battles of the Idiran conflict, the Twin Novae combat had been one of the last. The Idirans, desperate to avoid losing, had set off not one, but two sun explosions, eradicating biospheres and whole planets full of sentient life. These were gigadeathcrimes, assaults of really astounding magnitude. However, the conflict ended, and life continued. Eight hundred years later, light from the first explosion is about to reach the Masaq' Orbital, the place where the most daring and opulent souls of the Culture reside. There, it will descend upon the 50 billion people who have assembled in Masaq to remember the innocent people who lost their lives and to consider, if only briefly, what some have called the culture's own role in the horrific incident.

Major Quilan is another traveler to Masaq' who is sent by the war-torn nation of Chel. Most people think he has gone to Masaq' to bring back Chel's most dazzling star and self-exiled rebel, the revered Composer Ziller, after the battle that tore his planet apart. Ziller asserts that he would stop at nothing to avoid meeting Quilan, whom he believes is out to get him. The Major's actual goal, which his superiors have buried so deeply in his memory that even he is unable to recall, will, however, have much bigger ramifications than the killing of a simple political dissident. He will be a part of a scheme that is more ambitious than even he can comprehend.

Look to Windward, praised by SFX magazine as "an excellent hopping-on point if you've never read a Banks SF novel before," is a breathtaking look into the brilliantly imaginative and vividly realized society Banks refers to as the Culture.