One thing that happens when a civilization is preparing to Sublime is that representatives of other civs start dropping by. They are ruled by a clique of hereditary politicians, in league with the military, of which everyone is at least a nominal or reserve member. The Gzilt were one of the civilizations involved in the planning and creation of The Culture some 10,000 years ago, but in the end didn’t join. (This story is set about 1,500 years before the one in Banks’s previous book Surface Detail.) It is the ninth Culture novel in 25 years, and it is as complex, awe-inspiring, humorous and action-packed as anything Banks has written. Banks’s latest science-fiction novel set in what he has named The Culture. That’s the background to The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. And it is, until politicians, the military and an ancient religion get involved. It’s a time that ought to be spent entirely in contemplation, setting last things right, a bit of partying, some speechifying, and general preparation for an awesome event. The Gzilt, a humanoid civilization at the galaxy’s highest levels of development, are about to Sublime - to leave corporeal reality and join a higher realm, a heavenly, information-dense parallel universe to which most civilizations eventually retire.
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