This first-ever collection of Iain Banks's short fiction includes a novella never before published in Britain - The State of the Art. A striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, it adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast.

The other stories in this collection, all previously published in magazines and anthologies, range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale.
All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks's staggering talent.