Use of Weapons

This Culture novel follows Cheradenine Zakalwe, a military specialist employed by the Culture's Special Circumstances section to fight and rig wars on planets the Culture will not occupy openly. One narrative strand moves forward as Diziet Sma and the drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw recruit him for another intervention. A second strand moves backward through earlier missions toward a buried crime in his youth. The two sequences meet in an identity that Zakalwe has constructed as a weapon in itself. The book is space opera concerned with proxy war, guilt, and whether a civilisation that claims to be humane can remain so while using people like tools.

Bound in green cloth blocked in blue on cover with a design. Dark blue endpapers. Green slipcase bound in texture paper with blue dot pattern and hidden illustration inside the slipcase.