On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy reports on the doings of one Dr. Vosill, who has mysteriously become the personal physician to the king, despite being a foreigner and, even more unthinkably, a woman. Vosill has more enemies than she first realizes. But then she also has more remedies to hand than those who wish her ill can ever guess. Elsewhere, in another palace across the mountains, a man named DeWar serves as chief bodyguard to the Protector General of Tassasen, a profession he describes as the business of assassinating assassins. DeWar, too, has his enemies, but his foes strike more swiftly, and his means of combating them are more direct. None trust the doctor, while the bodyguard trusts no one, but what is the hidden commonality linking their disparate histories? Spiraling around a central core of mystery, deceit, love, and betrayal, *Inversions* is a dazzling work of science fiction from a versatile and imaginative author writing at the height of his remarkable powers. **About the Author:** Iain M. Banks, one of the United Kingdom’s bestselling authors of science fiction, has written such highly-regarded novels as *Excession* , *Feersum Endjinn* , *Use of Weapons* , *The State of the Art* , and *Against a Dark Background*. As Iain Banks, he also writes mainstream novels, including *The Wasp Factory* and *A Song of Stone*. He lives in Scotland.