Publisher's Synopsis
This special boxed set includes the first three books in Iain M. Banks's modern classic science fiction series, The Culture. The boxed set is the perfect introduction to the Culture, a utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.
"Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction." -- New York Times
Consider Phlebas: The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. But deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind sought by both sides: the Idirans and the Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the ground-breaking SF series penned by Iain M. Banks.
The Player of Games: The Culture -- a human/machine symbiotic society -- has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Jernau Morat Gurgeh. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad to try a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. But The Player of Games may have at last met his match.
Use of Weapons: The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks, and military action. But, all that of is in the past. Or so Zakalwe thinks until two figures from those dark days return to talk him out of retirement for one last job.
