The Orbital Corporations now control the world. In the ruins of an America ravaged by the Rock War, ex-fighter pilot Cowboy, who can be "hardwired" via skull sockets directly to his ride, has become a panzerboy, a hi-tech smuggler riding armored hovertanks through the balkanized countryside. He teams up with Sarah, another tough-as-nails gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals. They gather an unlikely gang of misfits for a ride that will take them to the edge of the atmosphere.

In a future where death is a thing of the past, how far would you go to solve your own murder? Paul Donner is a NYPD detective struggling with a drinking problem and a marriage on the rocks. Then he and his wife get dead--shot to death in a "random" crime. Fifty years later, Donner is back--revived courtesy of the Shift, a process whereby inanimate DNA is re-activated.

The first ever collection of Iain Banks' short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks' staggering talent.

Etienne Steward is a clone, also known as a beta. When he awakes, his memories are fifteen years old, because the original Steward—the alpha—never bothered to have his memories updated. In those fifteen years, the entire world has changed. An alien race known as The Powers has established relations with humanity. The Orbital Policorp which held his allegiance has collapsed. He fought and survived the off-world Artifacts War, but dozens of his friends did not. Both his first and second wives have divorced him. More importantly, someone has murdered him, causing the activation of the beta back-up. Now Steward has to figure out who wanted him dead, if he doesn't want to die again.