Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of Iain Banks’ fabulous new novel.
The Wopuld family built their fortune on a board game called Empire – now a wildly successful computer game. So successful the American Spraint Corp want to buy the Wopulds out. Alban, who has been evading the family tentacles for the last few years, thinks Spraint should be treated with suspicion – but he also has other things on his mind. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet over Sophie, his teenage love, who’ll be present at the forthcoming family gathering – part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting – in their highland castle?
A book of great warmth, humanity and ingenuity, THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE is Iain Banks’ finest novel since THE CROW ROAD.
The Wopuld family built their fortune on a board game called Empire – now a wildly successful computer game. So successful the American Spraint Corp want to buy the Wopulds out. Alban, who has been evading the family tentacles for the last few years, thinks Spraint should be treated with suspicion – but he also has other things on his mind. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet over Sophie, his teenage love, who’ll be present at the forthcoming family gathering – part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting – in their highland castle?
A book of great warmth, humanity and ingenuity, THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE is Iain Banks’ finest novel since THE CROW ROAD.
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Reviews
** 'Compellingly, beautifully crafted . . . A fascinating read
** 'Banks still has the ability to make the reader smile with pleasure
Banks begins his most consistent book since The Crow Road with slight-of-hand tricks displaying the master in rude form... These shifts in voice are so perfect, so clean and witty that when Alban comes to the fore, we feel he's one of us
A novel that could easily replace The Crow Road as his career highlight
Compellingly, beautifully crafted... A fascinating read
As good as anything Banks has ever written, if not better
** 'A novel that could easily replace THE CROW ROAD as his career highlight
Chock-a-block with the author's inimitable quirky magic
What Banks serves up is both unanticipated and terrifying. The fates of his characters are genuinely affecting
** 'Banks begins his most consistent book since THE CROW ROAD with slaight-of-hand tricks displaying the master in rude form ... These shifts in voice are so perfect, so clean and witty that when Alban comes to the fore, we feel he's one of is ... the maturit
Banks still has the ability to make the reader smile with pleasure