Matter
Chapters - Iain M. Banks
Prologue
Djan Seriy Anaplian and her drone companion Turminder Xuss observe an approaching army from a desert ridge on the planet Prasadal. While Anaplian naps, the drone deploys a knife missile which slices through the army's siege engines, wagons and weapon shafts with monofilament wires, leaving the forces in chaos without killing more than a handful. The operation demonstrates their restrained but formidable power as Culture Special Circumstances agents working to influence the planet's civilisational development.
POV: Djan Seriy Anaplian·On page: Turminder Xuss
Part: The Expeditionary
Ferbin flees the Shellworld and seeks his sister Djan Seriy Anaplian, who left Sursamen years ago and became a Culture Special Circumstances agent. The gap between the world she came from and the one she now inhabits is the novel's central distance.
Chapter 1: Factory
Prince Ferbin hides in an abandoned factory near the battlefield where the Sarl have defeated the Deldeyn, terrified and soiled after witnessing a general blown apart beside him. Through a gap in the floor, he watches as his mortally wounded father King Hausk is brought in. Tyl Loesp, his father's most trusted adviser, reveals his treachery - mocking the dying king, declaring Ferbin dead, and plunging his hand into the King's chest to kill him. Tyl Loesp then murders the priest and the doctor's assistant who witnessed the scene, and orders the building burned.
POV: Ferbin·On page: Mertis tyl Loesp, Holse, Gillews, King Nerieth Hausk·Mentioned: Oramen
Chapter 2: Palace
Oramen receives news of his father's and brother's deaths in his round room at the palace, learning that Mertis tyl Loesp will serve as regent until his next birthday. He encounters the Oct ambassador Kiu, endures the grief of Renneque and his father's consort Harne, and rides out with a great procession of nobles to meet the King's funeral cortege. Tyl Loesp delivers an elaborate speech of fealty, and Oramen improvises a surprisingly eloquent reply cobbled from old plays. He sits with his father's body on the journey back to Pourl.
POV: Oramen·On page: Mertis tyl Loesp, Fanthile, Renneque, Harne, Droffo·Mentioned: Ferbin
Chapter 3: Folly
Choubris Holse finds Ferbin hiding in a ruined folly after two days of searching the aftermath of the battle. Ferbin, desperate and half-starved, tells Holse the truth of their father's murder by Mertis tyl Loesp. Though initially sceptical, Holse is gradually convinced by Ferbin's unprecedented emotional state. Ferbin declares he must escape the Eighth and seek help - either from Xide Hyrlis, who now serves the Nariscene, or from his sister Djan Seriy in the Culture. They need travel documents from a Scholastery to reach the Surface through a Tower.
POV: Holse·On page: Ferbin·Mentioned: Mertis tyl Loesp, Djan Seriy Anaplian, Xide Hyrlis
Chapter 4: In Transit
Grand Zamerin Utaltifuhl of the Nariscene meets Morthanveld Director General Shoum at a transit facility above Sursamen before departing for the Everlasting Queen's Great Spawning. They discuss the political situation on Sursamen - the ongoing dispute over the Third Level, the Oct antagonising the Aultridia, and the potential dangers of Shellworlds. Shoum, who has long been fascinated by Shellworlds, learns of Sursamen's complex hierarchies of species and governance. The chapter introduces the vast scale and history of Shellworlds as ancient, potentially dangerous megastructures built by the vanished Involucra.
POV: Shoum·On page: Utaltifuhl
Chapter 5: Platform
Djan Seriy Anaplian watches the fall of a city on Prasadal - a sacking she helped bring about through SC operations. She rescues a child called Toark from soldiers and is summoned to meet her mentor Jerle Batra, who tells her that her father is dead and her brother Ferbin likely killed too. She processes the grief while learning the political situation: the Sarl victory, Mertis tyl Loesp's regency, and the Oct's deception of the Deldeyn. Despite Batra's reluctance, she decides she must return to Sursamen, calculating that the journey will take over 130 days through Morthanveld space.
POV: Djan Seriy Anaplian·On page: Turminder Xuss, Jerle Batra, Toark·Mentioned: Ferbin, Oramen, Mertis tyl Loesp
Chapter 6: Scholastery
Ferbin and Holse ride through the night towards the Hicturean-Anjrinh Scholastery, disguised as common travellers and bickering over Holse's duty to follow Ferbin beyond the kingdom. Ferbin meets his old tutor Seltis, who believes his account and provides travel documents for the D'nengoal Tower. However, Seltis's assistant Munhreo has betrayed them by heliographing a passing patrol. Three knights arrive on caude, forcing Ferbin and Holse to flee dramatically from the Scholastery roof on two of the knights' stolen flying beasts, killing the third to prevent pursuit.
POV: Ferbin·On page: Holse, Seltis, Munhreo·Mentioned: Djan Seriy Anaplian
Chapter 7: Reception
A grand reception follows King Hausk's state funeral in Pourl. Oramen observes the atmosphere and practises reading rooms as Ferbin taught him. He speaks with Fanthile, attempts to build a bridge with Harne by offering condolences, and questions Field Marshal Werreber and the Exaltine Chasque about his father's death, receiving evasive answers. He finds Dr Gillews extremely drunk and incoherent, seemingly tormented by guilt. Tyl Loesp introduces Tove Lomma as Oramen's new equerry, cementing his influence over the young prince regent.
POV: Oramen·On page: Fanthile, Harne, Renneque, Werreber, Gillews, Mertis tyl Loesp, Tove Lomma·Mentioned: Ferbin
Chapter 8: Tower
Ferbin and Holse fly their stolen caude across the landscape towards the D'nengoal Tower, navigating by chronometer and Tower-counting. They shelter during a grit-rain storm, debate fate versus chance regarding Ferbin witnessing his father's murder, and push on through deteriorating weather. At the Tower, they encounter an Oct access cylinder but are attacked by a lyge scout. In the desperate fight atop the glowing tower, Holse deploys a grenade and Ferbin throws a chronometer to save him. The Oct finally open the Tower entrance, but Ferbin is shot by a carbine as they scramble inside.
Chapter 9: One-finger Man
Tyl Loesp receives reports from his knights Vollird and Baerth about interrogating and killing Head Scholar Seltis, who had provided Ferbin with travel documents. He considers the complications of Ferbin being alive and on the run, recognising that Holse provides the cunning Ferbin lacks. Tyl Loesp decides against massacring the Scholastery scholars, preferring subtler management. He also arranges for Dr Gillews to be killed in a way that looks like suicide, and orders the reluctant Vollird and Baerth to pursue Ferbin to the Surface.
POV: Mertis tyl Loesp·On page: Vollird, Baerth·Mentioned: Ferbin, Holse, Seltis
Part: Depth of Field
Depth of field: the novel's middle act, in which Ferbin and Holse make their long passage out through Sursamen and across alien space while Djan Seriy Anaplian travels home from the Culture, and Oramen comes of age in Pourl as tyl Loesp's army descends to the Ninth. Ferbin's account of their father's murder finally reaches his sister aboard the Morthanveld Nestworld of Syaungun, and the three strands of the story begin to converge.
Chapter 10: A Certain Lack
A sweeping account of Djan Seriy Anaplian's fifteen years in the Culture: her adjustment to stronger gravity and new senses, her time studying on the Orbital Gadampth, her year living as a man, her accumulation of physical and mental enhancements, her joining Contact and then Special Circumstances. She is stripped of most of her SC enhancements as a courtesy to the Morthanveld before beginning her journey home. The drone Turminder Xuss secretly copies itself into a knife missile disguised as a dildo and stows away in her luggage, offering continued protection on the journey.
POV: Djan Seriy Anaplian·On page: Turminder Xuss, Jerle Batra
Chapter 11: Bare, Night
Oramen spends time with a girl called Jish in a brothel, testing his new adult freedoms while Tove carouses on the other side of a headboard. He visits Dr Gillews's chambers and finds the physician dead, apparently by suicide, with a syringe in his arm. Meanwhile, Mertis tyl Loesp and Werreber oversee the army's descent to the Ninth via Oct scendships, preparing the invasion of the Deldeyn. Tyl Loesp reflects on his philosophy of power and ruthlessness. Oramen receives a cryptic warning from Harne about unnamed dangers, and the army crosses a region of Night and Bare on its march.
POV: Oramen·On page: Tove Lomma, Gillews, Mertis tyl Loesp, Werreber, Harne·Mentioned: Ferbin
Chapter 12: Cumuloform
Ferbin slowly awakens on the Fourth level of Sursamen, having been healed by the Oct after his gunshot wound. Holse explains their journey: after entering the D'nengoal Tower, Oct medical machines saved Ferbin and transported them through the Tower's interior. They discovered the Oct only control the Tower up to the Fourth, with the Aultridia holding the upper levels. They are now being carried between Towers by a Cumuloform - a vast, sentient cloud creature - across an endless ocean. Ferbin begins to grasp how far they still must travel to reach the Surface and beyond.
Chapter 13: Don't Try This At Home
Djan Seriy Anaplian travels aboard the MSV Don't Try This At Home, where a ship liaison officer named Humli Ghasartravhara questions her about her SC connections and the knife missile in her luggage during a game of batao. She reflects on a childhood memory of Renneque cruelly telling her she killed her mother, and on the Morthanveld image of sunlight seen from underwater as a metaphor for solipsism. She deflects the ship's concerns about the knife missile by openly admitting her SC background and explaining that she has been stripped of most abilities.
POV: Djan Seriy Anaplian·On page: Humli Ghasartravhara·Mentioned: Turminder Xuss
Chapter 14: Game
Oramen and his rowdy companions, including Tove, enjoy a drunken game involving balanced tankards of beer at the Gilder's Lament tavern. When a brawl erupts, Tove rushes Oramen towards the back exit, but two assassins are waiting in the courtyard. One stabs Tove fatally in the belly; Oramen draws a concealed pistol and shoots both attackers dead. Meanwhile, Mertis tyl Loesp's army crosses a canal on the Ninth and engages the Deldeyn defenders in what proves to be the final campaign to take the Deldeyn capital of Rasselle.
POV: Oramen·On page: Tove Lomma, Mertis tyl Loesp, Werreber
Chapter 15: The Hundredth Idiot
On the Surface of Sursamen, Ferbin and Holse are accosted by Vollird and Baerth, tyl Loesp's assassin-knights, who have been sent to intercept them. Ferbin confronts them with veiled knowledge of their part in his father's murder, and when Baerth lunges with his sword a Nariscene judicial machine intervenes and disarms everyone. Acting Craterine Zamerin Alveyal Girgetioni refuses to warn Oramen or interfere in Sarl affairs, citing the Nariscene non-interference principle. Morthanveld director general Shoum then visits Ferbin privately in her barque, confirming that Oramen lives but cannot help with a warning either; she does, however, arrange passage for Ferbin and Holse aboard the Nariscene ship The Hundredth Idiot, heading towards Xide Hyrlis.
POV: Ferbin·On page: Holse, Vollird, Baerth, Shoum·Mentioned: Oramen, Djan Seriy Anaplian
Chapter 16: Seed Drill
A Culture citizen named Quitrilis Yurke, travelling in an old Erratic-class ship called the Now We Try It My Way, discovers that an Oct fleet above the planet Zaranche consists mostly of ghost ships - holographic fakes. The ship is destroyed by a beam from the one real Oct Primarian before it can report fully, though it manages to send a burst message to its home vessel. Djan Seriy Anaplian, aboard the GSV Seed Drill, dreams of Prasadal and is hit by a crackball thrown by a Peace Faction man who challenges her SC work. She defends interference as statistically justified.
POV: Djan Seriy Anaplian·On page: Quitrilis Yurke
Chapter 17: Departures
Oramen wakes to news of the war's victory and the Deldeyn capital's fall. A telegram reveals his mother has given birth to a new half-brother. Tyl Loesp, victorious on the Ninth, meets secretly with Oct envoy Savidius Savide aboard a submerged scendship near the Hyeng-zhar Falls. The Oct remain evasive about their reasons for helping the Sarl. Tyl Loesp arranges the governance of the conquered territory and plans his return to Pourl for a triumph, while secretly receiving word that Vollird and Baerth failed to kill Ferbin on the Surface.
POV: Oramen·On page: Neguste Puibive, Mertis tyl Loesp, Savidius Savide·Mentioned: Werreber, Ferbin