Walking on Glass

by Iain M. Banks

Overview

A reissue of Iain Banks' second novel—three separate stories which unfold to come intricately and masterfully together
 
Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life.
 
Graham Park is in love, but Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery. Steven Grout is paranoid, and with justice. He knows that They are out to get him, and They are. Quiss, insecure in his fabulous if ramshackle castle, is forced to play interminable impossible games. The solution to the oldest of all paradoxical riddles will release him, but he must find an answer before he knows the question. Park, Grout, Quiss—no trio could be further apart, but their separate courses are set for collision.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780349139203
Publisher:	Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date:	09/01/2013
Edition description:	New edition
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	275,010
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Iain Banks has gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream and his science fiction novels. He is perhaps best known for his Culture series of novels, which includes Consider Phlebas, Matter, and Surface Detail.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"An extraordinary feat, terrifying and baffling, going far beyond the bounds of fiction as it's usually defined."  —Publishers Weekly

"His vision of disillusion and escape remains memorably funny and sad, like the idea of glass made real in his castle: a transparent yet only apparent solid, that slowly is puddling under the pull of gravity. Recommended."  —Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

Banks received rave reviews from critics in his native England and the U.S. for his debut in The Wasp Factory. His second novel is also an extraordinary feat, terrifying and baffling, going far beyond the bounds of fiction as it's usually defined. There are really three separate stories here. The first concerns nice young Londoner Graham Park, in love with Sara ffitch (sic), whom he meets through his gay friend, Slater. The latter's wild ideas provide needed comedy in an otherwise brooding atmosphere, as Graham worries over whether he can win the mysterious Sara from her biker boyfriend. The next story tells of Steven Grout, a laborer who can't keep a job because of his disruptive temper. The paranoid Steven believes ``They'' are out to get him via lethal microwaves. The scene is laid in a surreal castle where two prisoners, Quiss and Ajayi, are being held for failing as soldiers in the War Against Banality and Interest. The pair, required to answer riddles to win release from this science-fiction hell, miss every time. Banks connects the entirely different events in the novel's closing pages, which reveal what happens between Graham and Sara in a scene so shocking it leaves the reader numb. February 14

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Banks's unusual novel explores the imagination's more grotesque efforts to cope with life, in three personal dilemmas. Graham Park is a young innocent in love, due to awaken to his role in an unwholesome relationship. Steven Grout is a paranoid and a betrayed warrior from another realm, exiled to our world to suffer secret microwave and laser torments as a social misfit. The elderly Quiss and Ajayi themselves are dishonored exiles of a cosmic war, fated to play bizarre games and answer an impossible riddle, in the strangest castle this side of Mervyn Peake. Banks shows a compelling ability to enter their lives. How he brings them together in a fantastic framework is somewhat less compelling. But his vision of disillusion and escape remains memorably funny and sad, like the idea of glass made real in his castle: a transparent yet only apparent solid, that slowly is puddling under the pull of gravity. Recommended. Jeff Clark, SUNY Coll. at Old Westbury Lib.

Library Journal

"An extraordinary feat, terrifying and baffling, going far beyond the bounds of fiction as it's usually defined."  —Publishers Weekly

"His vision of disillusion and escape remains memorably funny and sad, like the idea of glass made real in his castle: a transparent yet only apparent solid, that slowly is puddling under the pull of gravity. Recommended."  —Library Journal

From the Publisher