Excession

Name: Excession
Brand: Hachette Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Iain M. Banks
ISBN: 9781668652619

Author: Iain M. Banks

Narrator: Peter Kenny

Unabridged: 15 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Orbit

Published: 01/20/2026

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure

Synopsis

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.

"Banks is a phenomenon." –– William Gibson

Two and a half millennia ago in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe, the artifact appeared.

It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared.

Now it is back.

Diplomat Genar-Hofoen of Special Circumstances is sent to investigate but, sidetracked by an old flame and the spoiled-brat operative Ulver Seich, and faced with the systematic depravities of a race who call themselves the Affront, it's anyone's guess whether he'll succeed . . .

Praise for the Culture series:

"Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution." –Independent on Sunday
"Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future." –Guardian

"Jam-packed with extraordinary invention." –Scotsman

"Compulsive reading." –Sunday Telegraph

The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
The State of the Art

Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist

Also now available:
The Culture: The Drawings- an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.

About Iain M. Banks

Iain Banks (1954-2013) came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bradley on February 21, 2016

This happens to be exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. I wanted intelligent galaxy-spanning space opera with a handful of baseline humans getting caught up in an existential conundrum that the far-superior AI Ships (and Main Characters) had to face. And we even get a BDO to spark an enormous inte......more

Goodreads review by mark on September 15, 2015

ATTENTION CULTURE SHOPPERS this weekend's special is an Outside Context Problem! this amazing special is so unique, most shoppers will only encounter it once - in a millenium! please look for the infinity symbol tagged on our specially-marked OCP items. on aisle 1, back by popular demand, we are excit......more

Goodreads review by Dirk on December 02, 2021

Foolish child! Make all haste. A BDO novel taking place in the Culture universe? Will the law of diminishing returns apply? There is so much weirdness and wonder in the Culture already, how much value can an artefact add to the heady mix? Possibility: Culture universe not well suited for BDO sense of......more

Goodreads review by Apatt on August 15, 2015

The Culture series is one of the most beloved among today's sf readers, possibly the most beloved but I don't have any hard figures to back it up so I'll leave that hyperbole out for now. Certainly some entries in the series are more popular than others, based on the average ratings and online discu......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on March 12, 2016

Excession: Too complex for meat-based life forms to understand Excession is the fourth book in Iain M. Banks’ CULTURE series. I’ll assume you already know the far-future decadent post-scarcity intergalactic empire of the Culture, dominated by its (mostly) benign AIs, known as Minds, and its trillions......more

Quotes

“Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance.”—William Gibson

“Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction.”—The New York Times

“An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on The Algebraist

“Banks never lets up in a dizzying array of characters, mind-bending ideas, and dazzling action.”—Booklist

“Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth.”—New York Review of Science Fiction

“[Banks] can summon up sense-of-wonder Big Concepts you've never seen before and display them with narration as deft as a conjuror's fingers." —scifi.com

"Nobody does it better."—Times (UK)

"Banks writes space opera on the grand scale: he measures time in eons, space in lightyears, tragedies in gigadeaths."—Time

"Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution."—Independent on Sunday

"Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future."—The Guardian