For those not acquainted with large-scale SF,The Algebraist is a perfect place to have your mind blown to smithereens with all that its vast canvas delivers --GUARBIAN

 The master's characteristic touches are present ingreat abundance --THE INDEPENDENT

 Brimming with wry, caustic humour and vivid.energetic creativity, The Algebraist yet again showslain M Banks to be a consummate player of sciencefiction's best games --INTERZONE

 It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars.Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of, Fassin Taak must travel amongst the Dwellers of the .gas grant Nasqueron, in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. Any help they offer will be on their own terms and in their own time.

 But time is one thing Fassin Taak doesn't have,with each passing day bringing the system closer to war - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known.

Prologue

 One: The Autumn House

 Two: Destructive Recall

 Three: Nowhere Left to Fall

 Four: Events During Wartime

 Five: Conditions of Passage

 Six:  The Last Transform

Epilogue