Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks - SF - SFBookcase.com - Reference of Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels/Authors.

Series: The Culture
Genre: SF
ISBN: 1857239695(hc)
Pages: 352 pages
Publisher: Orbit
Price: 16.99
Reader Rating: 8 out of 10
Votes: 19

Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

Description: It was one of the less glorious incidents of a long-ago war. It led to the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported. Now, 800 years later, the light from those first ancient deaths has reached the Culture's Orbital called Masaq'. For the Hub Mind, overseer of the massive bracelet world, its arrival is particularly poignant. But it still may be eclipsed by events from the cultures more recent past.
When the Chelgrian Ziller, a composer of galactic renown living in self-imposed exile on Masaq', learns that an emissary from his home is being sent to the orbital, he fears what he assumes to be the worst, that the Chelgrians want him to return.

But the composer is far from being the only thing on the Chelgrian emissary's mind. His mission has another purpose; one so secret he does not know it himself at first. Discovering its nature will take him on a journey into his past and the haunting memories of another terrible war whose legacy threatens to be much more than just an unfortunate diplomatic incident.

Look to Windward is Iain M Banks' most powerful novel to date and an extraordinary work of the imagination. Ferociously intelligent, wildly original and hugely enjoyable, it is a masterpiece of science fiction.