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Read an Extract from Surface Detail by Iain M Banks

Not long now until the UK publication date of Iain M Banks’ brand new Culture novel, Surface Detail, on October 7th 2010 (US readers will have to wait just a little longer, until October 28th).

To whet your appetite (and give you something to talk about over on the forum in the meantime) the whole of chapter one is now available to read here on the site.

Here’s how it all begins:

“This one might be trouble.”

She heard one of them say this, only ten or so metres away in the darkness. Even over her fear, the sheer naked terror of being hunted, she felt a shiver of excitement, of something like triumph, when she realised they were talking about her. Yes, she thought, she would be trouble, she already was trouble. And they were worried too; the hunters experienced their own fears during the chase. Well, at least one of them did. The man who’d spoken was Jasken; Veppers’ principal bodyguard and chief of security. Jasken. Of course; who else?

Click here to read the rest of the first chapter.