2024/052: The Hydrogen Sonata — Iain M Banks

2024/052: The Hydrogen Sonata — Iain M Banks

Why do we bother with this sort of bio-tangling stuff in the first place? We could live lives of such uncomplicated joy if we left them to their own sordid, murderous devices. [loc. 1207]

The Gzilt, a Culture-adjacent civilisation, are counting down the days to Sublimation, when their entire species / civilisation will enter a higher plane of being (or possibly a 'great retirement home'), as foretold in their Book of Truth. But when a neighbouring civilisation sends a ship to reveal a long-held secret to the Gzilt, that ship is destroyed. What secret can possibly be deemed so dangerous at this point?

( Read more... )