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A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful
… More »A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?On the Concern's books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there's the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.
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Add a CommentThis is a fabulous book that takes place in the many worlds model of quantum theory (also the setting of other recent books: Neal Stephenson's "Anathma" (http://bibliocommons.biblioottawalibrary.ca/item/show/1396368014_anathem) and Greg Egans two recent short stroies "Singleton" and "Oracle" (http://bibliocommons.biblioottawalibrary.ca/item/show/1463247014_crystal_nights_and_other_stories) which I also highly recommend) This is possibly Iain M. Banks best work since Excession. Questions: In this novel is the "Concern" a kind of mutated image of the Culture? Are Bank's episodes of Christian Terrorism an accurate mirror of the kind of distorted discourse that surrounds Islam in the developed world?