Song Of Stone

A European nation not unlike Bosnia: armed forces roam the lawless land where dark columns of smoke rise up from the surrounding farms and houses. The war is ending, perhaps ended. But for the castle and its occupants, a young lord and lady, the trouble is just beginning. andlt;BRandgt; Fearing an invasion of soldiers, the amorous couple takes to the road with the other refugees, disguised in rags. But the brutal female lieutenant of an outlaw band of guerrillas has other ideas. Just hours into their escape, the fleeing aristocrats are delivered back to the castle, where, now prisoners in their own home, they become pawns in the lieutenant's dangerous game of desire, deceit, and death. andlt;BRandgt; andlt;Iandgt;A Song of Stoneandlt;/Iandgt; demonstrates Iain Banks's unique ability to combine gripping narrative with a soaring, voyaging imagination. This noir fable confirms his reputation as the master of things dark and debauched. Singular, haunting, and viciously wry, andlt;Iandgt;A Song of Stoneandlt;/Iandgt; is a tour de force of contemporary fiction.

"[Banks's] impeccable prose undulates with poetry and sensuality that transform the most ordinary movements of his tale into resonant images of beauty and terror." Publishers Weekly

"A fairly great, strange mix of classical affect, lush brutality, and adolescent fantasy in a tale of postsocial-collapse castle life....The writing will loop you in." Spin

"...[M]akes an abstraction of a blood bath....In Banks's hands, warfare, even so graphically rendered, has never been so tediously cerebral." Margot Mifflin, The New York Times Book Review

"A grim, mordant portrait of the corrosive effects of moral corruption and a generalized atmosphere of violence, played out against the brutal background of a Bosnian-style war....The metaphors here (the castle as a site of power and corruption; an enervated aristocracy) aren't new. But Banks imbues them with fresh vigor; and finds in the reflections of his bright but twisted narrator a core of sorrow in the human heart, and an angry appetite for destruction. Not for the squeamish, but those looking for a confrontational work will find this a daring, deeply unsettling meditation on the very human face of evil." Kirkus Reviews

"Banks writes with rich tactile detail and dark suspense, borne upon an undercurrent of revulsion. The revulsion issues from the corrupt voice of Abel, his narrator. It grips us insistently and too close; it breathes a perfumed rottenness in our face; it employs unabashed confession as an ultimate smoke screen. Banks uses this smoke to trace out his novel's theme: the perduring evil that underlies all history and histories." Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review

"Banks's already high reputation can only be enhanced." Times Literary Supplement (London)

"[The novel] begins as a story of war but eerily and almost hypnotically evolves into a morality tale and, ultimately, a passion play with startlingly twisted passions....This dark tale of revolution, dissolution, and depravity will further strengthen Banks's reputation as one of England's most important and compelling writers." Booklist

"There is something in this novel that is heavier than the stone world it purports to sing. There is something here, as well, that braces the heart, though not soon. The simple story of A Song of Stone is told complicatedly, from behind an arras or two, and its joys unpack late. It is not an easy ride to the last word." John Clute, The Washington Post Book World

Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, recently selected in a British poll as one of the top one hundred novels of the century. Since then he has gained enormous popular and critical acclaim with his other works of fiction and, as Iain M. Banks, science fiction. He lives in Scotland.