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Special Circumstances had always been the Contact section’s moral espionage weapon, the very cutting edge of the Culture’s interfering diplomatic policy, the élite of the élite in a society which abhorred élitism. The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of SC’s foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman’s life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past. In this brilliant, multilayered book, Iain Banks explores once again the universe of the Culture, which he has previously visited in *Consider Phlebas* and *The Player of Games*. Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, *Use of Weapons* leaves no doubt that Banks is now the outstanding writer of science fiction in Britain.

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