Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
Matter Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Open Audiobook

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

Matter

AuthorIain M. Banks

NarratorToby Longworth

SeriesThe Culture, Book 8

Duration5h 33m

CategoriesAdult Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy

PublisherLittle, Brown

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

The intricate structure of a Shellworld - an arti­ficial planet of spheres-within-spheres - is matched only by the machinations of its inhabitants. On the eighth sphere of Sursamen, a man witnesses the murder of his father and flees, searching for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother, this means a life lived under constant threat of treachery, while for their sister, Djan Seriy Anaplian, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever. Anaplian is not who she once was. She has become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy. Concealing her new identity - and her particular set of abilities - might be a dangerous strategy. In the world to which she returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.

0 (0 Reviews)
0
0
0
0
0

Related Titles

The State of the Art Cover

The State of the Art

Author: Iain M. Banks

The State of the Art

Author Iain M. Banks

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Culture, Book 4

Duration 6h 21m

The State of the Art is the only collection of Iain M. Banks's short ­fiction and includes the acclaimed Culture novella of the same name. From science ­fiction to horror, dark fantasy to twisted comedy, all eight stories bear the inde­finable stamp of Banks's staggering talent.

View Book
Consider Phlebas Cover

Consider Phlebas

Author: Iain M. Banks

Consider Phlebas

Author Iain M. Banks

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Culture, Book 1

Duration 16h 25m

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. War rages across the galaxy. Billions have died, billions more are doomed. Moons...

View Book
The Hydrogen Sonata Cover

The Hydrogen Sonata

Author: Iain Banks

The Hydrogen Sonata

Author Iain Banks

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Culture, Book 10

Duration 17h

The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, the End Days for the Gzilt civilisation. An ancient people, organised on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they'v...

View Book
A Scanner Darkly Cover

A Scanner Darkly

Author: Philip K. Dick

A Scanner Darkly

Author Philip K. Dick

Narrator Paul Giamatti

Duration 9h 15m

Substance D - otherwise known as Death - is the most dangerous drug ever to find its way on to the black market. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, leading first to disorentation and then to complete and irreversible brain damage. Bob Arctor, undercover narcotics agent, is trying to find a lead to the source of supply, but t...

View Book
The Witcher Book 3: Baptism of Fire Cover

The Witcher Book 3: Baptism of Fire

Author: Andrzej Sapkowski

The Witcher Book 3: Baptism of Fire

Author Andrzej Sapkowski

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Witcher, Book 3

Duration 11h 58m

The Wizards Guild has been shattered by a coup and, in the uproar, Geralt was seriously injured. The Witcher is supposed to be a guardian of the innocent, a protector of those in need, a defender against powerful and dangerous monsters that prey on men in dark times. But now that dark times have fallen upon the world, Geralt is helpless until he ha...

View Book
Use of Weapons Cover

Use of Weapons

Author: Iain M. Banks

Use of Weapons

Author Iain M. Banks

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Culture, Book 3

Duration 13h 29m

The man known as Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action. Though the woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and aided his stratospheric rise, she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone Ska­ffen-A...

View Book
Rivers of London Book 8: False Value Cover

Rivers of London Book 8: False Value

Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Rivers of London Book 8: False Value

Author Ben Aaronovitch

Narrator Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

SeriesRivers of London, Book 8

Duration 11h 11m

Peter Grant is facing fatherhood and an uncertain future with equal amounts of panic and enthusiasm. Rather than sit around, he takes a job with ‚migr‚ Silicon Valley tech genius Terrence Skinner's brand-new London start-up - the Serious Cybernetics Company. Drawn into the orbit of Old Street's famous 'silicon roundabout', Peter must le...

View Book
The Player of Games Cover

The Player of Games

Author: Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games

Author Iain M. Banks

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Culture, Book 2

Duration 11h 27m

The Culture - a utopian human-machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many expert Game Players, and one of the greatest is Jernau Morat Gurgeh. He is Master of every board, computer and strategy - he is The Player of Games. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the cruel and incredibly wealthy Empire of Azad to try their infamous game . . . a gam...

View Book
The Witcher Book 1: Blood of Elves Cover

The Witcher Book 1: Blood of Elves

Author: Andrzej Sapkowski

The Witcher Book 1: Blood of Elves

Author Andrzej Sapkowski

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Witcher, Book 1

Duration 10h 54m

For more than a hundred years humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over and now the races once again fight each other. Into this tumultuous time is born a child for whom the witchers of the world have been waiting. Ciri, the granddaughter of Queen Calanthe, the Lioness of Ci...

View Book
Excession Cover

Excession

Author: Iain M. Banks

Excession

Author Iain M. Banks

Narrator Peter Kenny

SeriesThe Culture, Book 5

Duration 15h 55m

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 s...

View Book