A la Frontière dune Harmonie (FICTION) (French Edition)

Decrescenzo Editeurs, voyage littéraire

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The bishops then had both spiritual and temporal powers. The spiritual power of the bishop was exercised over a vast diocese, which stretched on the right bank of the Scheldt to Mons , Brussels and Antwerp. In one of the first communal uprisings in Europe occurred in Cambrai. The rebellion was severely repressed, but the discontent flared up again in the 10th and 11th centuries. Between and , the burghers had a charter franchise on at least four occasions. Each time, these were eventually withdrawn by the combined efforts of the bishops and emperors.

In , following another period of unrest, the burghers of Cambrai finally had to give up their charters and accept the bishop's authority. However, the Loi Godefroid promulgated by the bishop, in fact or in law, left the people a number of freedoms won in the management of communal affairs. Cambrai is also known for its Irish homily. In the Middle Ages the city grew richer and larger thanks to its weaving industry which produced woollen cloth, linen and cambric.

Cambrai, and in particular the drapery, experienced an economic decline from the 15th century. By the 11th century the city walls had reached the circumference they would keep until the 19th century. Cambrai has a distinguished musical history, particularly in the 15th century. The cathedral there, a musical center until the 17th century, had one of the most active musical establishments in the Low Countries; many composers of the Burgundian School either grew up and learned their craft there, or returned to teach.

In Philippe de Luxembourg claimed that the cathedral was the finest in all of Christianity, for the fineness of its singing, its light, and the sweetness of its bells. Guillaume Dufay , the most famous European musician of the 15th century, studied at the cathedral from to , and returned in after spending many years in Italy.

Cambrai cathedral had other famous composers in the later 15th century: Johannes Tinctoris and Ockeghem went to Cambrai to study with Dufay. In , in the early stages of the war, the English king Edward III laid siege to the city but eventually had to withdraw. By the 14th century the county was surrounded on all parts by Burgundy 's possessions and John of Burgundy , an illegitimate son of John the Fearless , was made bishop.

Louis XI immediately seized the opportunity to take control of Cambrai, but left the city a year later. Martin and Martine are two legendary characters who have come to represent the city which they are said to have saved. There are different versions of the story. The most commonly accepted version runs as follows: Martin, armed only with his heavy iron hammer, soon came face to face with the enemy. He dealt such a heavy blow on his opponent's head that, although the helmet of the lord did not break, because it was made of good steel, it was driven down to his eyes.

Dazed and blinded, the lord of Thun quickly surrendered. Today the automatons of Martin and Martine, standing at the top of the town hall, strike the hours with a hammer as a reminder of that mighty blow. As the economic centre of northern Europe moved away from Bruges , the area became poorer, with an associated period of cultural decline.

The alliance collapsed in when the Pope allied with Venice against his former ally France. The conflict is also referred to as the War of the League of Cambrai and lasted from to In , the community of nuns of the English Benedictine Congregation was founded at Cambrai. Expelled in as a result of the French Revolution, its successor community has since been established at Stanbrook Abbey , near Malvern. In , Richelieu , wishing to counter the power of the Emperor and Spain, renewed the alliance of France with the United Provinces. Mazarin tried unsuccessfully, in , to seize the city which was being besieged by Henri de Lorraine-Harcourt and the Vicomte de Turenne.

A Spanish regiment, which came from Bouchain succeeded in entering the city and the siege was lifted.

In , the Vicomte de Turenne captured Cambrai. In , in the greatest secrecy, Louis XIV prepared new conquests by making plans of the Spanish fortifications, and then began the War of Devolution. In , hostilities resumed against the Protestant Republic of the Netherlands and continued in the following years. On 17 March , the French troops stormed Valenciennes and moved toward Cambrai, the strongest place of the Netherlands, [b 17] which was reached on 20 March.

By 5 April, the city surrendered, given the same benefits as Lille in , [b 2] but the Spanish garrison took refuge in the citadel and the siege continued until 17 April. After 29 days of siege the king made his entry into the city, on 19 April, Easter Monday. By the Treaty of Nijmegen of , Spain had relinquished Cambrai, which has remained as a part of France, to this day. French influence would transform the architecture and urbanism of the city.

The gables of the houses on the street were blocked and the city was embellished with mansions. The fortifications were reinforced with advanced works. He came to be known as the "Swan of Cambrai" " le cygne de Cambrai " , in opposition to his friend and rival Bossuet , the "eagle of Meaux" " l'aigle de Meaux " , and he wrote his Maxims of the Saints while residing in the city. He had a relentless zeal to enlighten the faithful and to convert the unfaithful.

The city suffered from the Revolution: He was to set up an era of "terror", sending many to the guillotine , until he was tried and executed in Most of the religious buildings of the city were demolished in that period: The main tower was left standing until , when it collapsed [d 3] in a storm. The Franco-Prussian War of widely spared Cambrai. It also showed the futility of the fortifications which the city obtained permission to demolish, at its expense, in The appearance of the city was radically transformed, and the works stimulated the city's economy.

In , the German army occupied the city: This occupation, which lasted for four years, was marked by scenes of looting, requisitions and arrests of hostages. From 20 November to 17 December , the vicinity of the town of Cambrai was the theatre of the Battle of Cambrai , which saw the massive use of tanks for the first time. In , the Germans burned the city centre before leaving, destroying the city hall and the municipal archives. In total, more than 1, buildings were totally destroyed, of the 3, which consisted of Cambrai.

World War II also struck Cambrai. The city was bombed by the Luftwaffe on 17 May , during the Battle of France , before falling the next day at the same time as Saint-Quentin. After the war, the priority again was reconstruction. The municipality gave priority to the construction of houses: At the same time, the city lost industrial jobs and moved towards the tertiary sector, but it was public administrations which provided the bulk of jobs.

Overall, voting in Cambrai is little different from the national vote, but the abstention rate is often higher: For example, it was Cambresiens voters seem also more cautious with regard to the European Union and the French in general: The referendum on the ratification of the Treaty on European Union of was rejected by In , the draft law on the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was rejected more widely in Cambrai In the presidential election of the results of the second round were very close to national figures: In the second round of the presidential election of Jacques Chirac arrived largely in the lead in Cambrai as in the rest of the country but Jean-Marie Le Pen's result was higher All the other candidates were below the national percentage of their party.

For example, the Socialist Party achieved The decline of the National Front was also more marked in Cambrai 4. One finds a situation close to the elections. In the first round of the presidential election of , the four candidates in the lead in Cambrai were Nicolas Sarkozy UMP , Cambrai is the chef-lieu of one of the six arrondissements in the Nord department. Cambrai is also the seat of the canton of Cambrai , which consists of 27 communes including Cambrai. The city also adheres to the following intercommunal structures:.

Cambrai was merged with the commune of Morenchies in Since , Cambrai has had three mayors. The city, after having constantly re-elected a Socialist mayor from the Liberation until in the person of Raymond Gernez, has since been administered by mayors from RPR or the related UMP: The latter was elected to the 18th constituency in Nord on 16 June and re-elected in and Cambrai was for a short time the seat of the Parlement of French Flanders , from until its transfer to Douai in Beginning , the city's environmental policy seems difficult to read: There is a Directorate for the Environment at the mayor's office but the site fails to deliver any information.

Cambrai is twinned [51] with:.

An agreement of pre-twinning with the city of Cieszyn in Poland was signed Friday, 15 July In , the commune had 32, inhabitants. The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through the population censuses carried out in the town since From the 21st century, the communes with more than 10, inhabitants have a census take place every year as a result of a sample survey, unlike the other communes which have a real census every five years.

The urban unit of Cambrai had 47, inhabitants in , [57] and the urban area 65, inhabitants. The population of Cambrai increased little over the centuries: Estimated at 10, souls in the 15th century, it is, according to a memorandum of intendant who described it as "very diminished", at 12, in It increased slowly but steadily throughout the 19th century with a net decline in the early 20th century: At the same time, infant mortality remained high This dynamism, however, showed however signs of stalling since The curve was brutally reversed by the oil crisis.

The city's population plummeted from the census, net migration which was largely positive in the s became negative, while the natural balance, which remains positive, tends to shrink. Many traditional activities have disappeared chocolate production, brewery, chicory, weaving, metallurgy, etc. The graphics below represent the age structure in of the population of the commune of Cambrai, and of the Nord department population. The age structure of Cambrai at the census of was quite close to that of metropolitan France, and the Nord, with a greater deficit in the 0—14 years age group and to a lesser extent the age group of 30—44 years, a possible consequence of a negative migration balance.

The percentage of farmers is naturally low in Cambrai 0. However, it was behind the French average, and even the region, in relation to higher education levels I and II. The branch of Lille-2 prepares to obtain a license "mention droit" or "mention economic and social administration", as well as three professional licenses: For management of small-medium businesses, for transportation of goods and for security professions.

With nearly students in alternation, learning or school track, Sup'Sagesse [69] is a real city centre campus, incorporating a boarding school. On 15 August is the communal festival of Cambrai, and one of the highlights of the popular local life. This festival, originally a procession which took place the day after Trinity Sunday , dates back to Over the centuries the festival has changed, reflecting the concerns of the contemporary: In the 19th century, finally, interests turned more to local life, and the progress of science and industry.

Musically, the town of Cambrai receives two festivals. Firstly, the Juventus classical music festival. The Juventus association mark young talented European soloists. They are appointed, if they accept it, "Juventus Winners" during their first participation in a Juventus festival. Every summer the old and the new winners gather for a fortnight at the festival to prepare chamber music concerts in exceptional conditions. Juventus , established in at the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans , was set at Cambrai from with the help of the General Council of the department.

It is organised during the month of April. The last edition took place in The Cambrai city hall is the national headquarters of the Union for the horse breed of the " Trait du Nord ". The Trait du Nord national competition is traditionally held during the last weekend of July at the Palais des Grottes. Medical density is quite good at Cambrai, when compared with the regional and national averages. In the agglomeration community there are 2. The Saint-Julien hospital, which housed the poor and the sick, was founded in Today it remains as a chapel adjoining the municipal theatre.

Over the following centuries, other hospitals were founded: After World War II the construction of a modern hospital was envisaged. The Central Hospital of Cambrai [77] has a capacity of beds and seats. It employs a staff of officers and has a non-medical staff of 1, Three annexe buildings are reserved for medium and long stay, maternity and Psychiatry patients.

A Nursing Training Institute was opened in The work for the construction of the present site began in , the installation of the patients being carried out between and In , the work to modernise and expand the central hospital was undertaken. The prize list of "the safest hospitals" places the Central Hospital of Cambrai as the 11th best in the national ranking. Cambrai has three private clinics: Facilities include six gymnasiums, two swimming pools, of which the Liberty Swimming Centre was rebuilt and reopened in , the Arsenal de Balagny, which was built between and , abandoned by the army in and then rehabilitated as a gym, a leisure centre, a hockey stadium, a rugby stadium and many football pitches, including the Liberty Stadium, home of AC Cambrai.

Cambrai has a rowing club that goes under the name of Union Nautique de Cambrai. The club is regularly present to the Rowing French Championships. In the early s, one of its feminine team members made it to the World Championships. Since then, the club has been in the phase of beginning a new cycle based on renewed team members, especially youngsters.

Every year, the club is home to the Regattas of Cambrai, during which clubs from Northern France gather for sprint-races on a m distance. Cambrai was the departure point for Stage 4 of the Tour de France [83] and once again the departure point of Stage 4 in the Tour de France. In , the newspaper L'Equipe ranked Cambrai among the top five cities as the most sporty in France with more than 20, inhabitants, along with Lorient , Colmar , Antibes and Tarbes. The special prize of "Sport and Disability" was awarded to the city for its access to sport for people with disabilities.

The La Voix du Nord regional daily publishes a local edition. Cambrai is part of the territory served by radio BLC, a community radio station whose programmes are broadcast from Caudry. The people of Cambrai have places of Catholic , Protestant and Muslim worship. Cambrai is the seat of a Catholic archbishopric , suffragan of Lille since 29 March Until then, it was the opposite situation with the Archdiocese of Cambrai as the metropolitan archdiocese and Lille and Arras as its suffragans.

The deanery of Cambrai brings together 13 churches [89] grouped into two parishes: In April , it decided to merge with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Arras, a decision which was called into question on 4 October , by the Ministry of Supervision of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry. As early as the Middle Ages , Cambrai was both an agricultural market for its region, which produces mainly cereals and wool, and a centre of weaving sheets, woad , cloth, linen, chiffon.

This dual role would persist for a long time. If that's not enough to qualify this book as one of the best, if not the best, I don't know what is. The Book of the New Sun. The first volume in this quartet starts amid dark, forbidding towers, where young Severian is apprenticed to a Guild of Torturers.

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Because those towers are actually long-abandoned rocket ships. The picture of a man in armour that we see inside one of the towers is actually a famous photograph of Buzz Aldrin taken on the moon. This, we realise, is the far future, a future where the world is starting to run down and the people await a saviour who will renew the sun. When Severian is expelled from the guild for putting one prisoner out of her misery, we follow him into a society that is crowded and colourful and mysterious.

Here there are aliens, though for a while we don't realise they are aliens because everyone is so used to them that they don't pay them any special attention. Here there are augmented people, and strange technological advances, but knowledge of these has long been lost.

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As we pick our way through the story we realise that there is a huge amount of stuff going on that we only glimpse out of the corner of the eye, and each time you re-read the work you notice something else so that the story becomes ever richer and more rewarding. Our narrator, Severian, has a perfect memory, but don't let that fool you into thinking he's a reliable narrator; he leaves things out so that there are always surprises awaiting the reader.

But there is so much going on in the story that you sometimes don't notice when he's left things out, because there are wars and betrayals and miracles and mysteries and people raised from the dead, and Severian's journey includes companions who may or may not be reliable, assassins attempting to kill him for reasons he doesn't understand, attacks by terrifying creatures, and the staggering revelation that he is actually the next autarch. Gene Wolfe is the finest stylist writing in science fiction, it is always a pleasure to read his books. But The Book of the New Sun marks the high point of his career, a subtle and brilliantly readable blending of science fiction and fantasy, which is reflected in the fact that all four volumes won at least one major award.

It is hard to dispute the fact that Robert Heinlein is the most important figure in the history of American science fiction. More than any other writer, his work embodied the hard sf aesthetic encouraged by John W. And for thirty years, from the s to the s, Heinlein was the dominant figure that every other science fiction writer looked up to.

Year in, year out, he wrote novel after novel that became instant classics, so many, indeed, that it is hard to choose just one that represents his work at its very best. But in the end the one that stands out for us is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's the story of a revolt by a lunar colony that is mostly made up of criminals and political exiles. The hero is Mannie, a computer technician who discovers that the Lunar Authority's master computer has achieved self-awareness, and through the computer he learns that if the colony doesn't stop exporting hydroponic wheat to Earth there will soon be starvation.

This is the background for a revolution, with the "Loonies" fighting for independence by dropping rocks on the Earth. Eventually, the colonists win, but the result isn't all that they had hoped for. The novel provides a platform for Heinlein to discuss themes familiar from a lot of his work, including non-traditional social and sexual organisation here, for instance, the idea of the line marriage, with new people joining the marriage at regular intervals so it is virtually unending , and libertarian politics.

In later books, this philosophizing would come to overwhelm the work, but here he has it perfectly balanced with a dramatic plot. Which is why this is probably the best of his books. Why It's On the List. The Dispossessed has been acclaimed as a new approach to utopian literature, but we should pay attention to the subtitle that appears in most editions of the book: Le Guin is never straightforward in her presentation of the various societies in her novels, there is always a subtlety, an ambiguity, which is what makes her undoubtedly one of the finest of all science fiction writers.

On the planet Urras, the societies reflect the time when Le Guin was writing the novel. There is one state, A-Io, that calls to mind the capitalist society of the United States, and another, Thu, that has something of the statist communism of the Soviet Union. In contrast, on the moon Anarres, there is a functioning anarchist society based on the teaching of Odo. But we should not read Anarres as utopian, there are all sorts of restrictions on life there, as our protagonist, Shevek, discovers.

He is a scientist working on a revolutionary new theory of time, and there are limitations on how far he can advance while on Anarres. So he travels to Urras in order to exchange ideas with the scientists there, only to discover that he faces different but equally frustrating restrictions there. In alternating chapters we follow Shevek on Anarres and on Urras, incidents in one often being reflected in a similar incident in the other, so that we are constantly able to compare and contrast the different societies.

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And while the purity of the anarchist society is presented very positively, we also see ways in which the capitalist and communist societies of Urras have an advantage. Beautifully written, vividly realised, and packed with ideas that make us constantly reassess our views on the different political systems in the novel, this is a prime example of science fiction as the literature of ideas.

Little wonder that it won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards. As an alternative choice for this spot on the list we can present Le Guin's other work as an alternative read if you want another choice. Ursula Le Guin is, deservedly, one of the most highly acclaimed writers in science fiction. Set on a planet known as Winter, it describes a society in which people are gender neutral and only take on sexual characteristics once a month at a time known as kemmer. At this time an individual might take on the characteristics of either sex, so the novel works as a thought experiment about what it would be like to have no male and no female.

The result is one of the most challenging and the most inspiring books in science fiction. A fantastic Hugo-winning space opera that merges the narrative element of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with a futuristic space opera set in the distant future. The whole series not just the first book is based on the assumption that man's conquering the stars is inevitable and the complexities and troubles this brings. The sequence consists of two pairs of novels. The first pairing, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, introduces a group of six travellers who set out on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on Hyperion, a pilgrimage that is a certain death sentence.

For these pilgrims are seeking out the Shrike, a god like creature that legend says will kill all but one pilgrim, granting the one survivor a wish. During the journey the travellers, like Chaucer's pilgrims before them, each tell a story, and through the stories we find out what drove them to this desperate journey. The second pair of novels, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion, is set nearly years later and concerns a soldier, Raul Endymion who is unfairly condemned to death and rescued to perform a serious of hazardous tasks.

The most important of these is to protect Aenea, a time traveller from the past who represents a threat to the all-powerful Church. These are dark novels, exploring the suffering of the human soul -- both physical, emotional, and spiritual. Don't go reading this if you are looking for a light, happy go lucky read. Star Wars this is not, so don't think about this book if you want something happy. The entire sequence depicts one grand hall of suffering, from the decrepit, dying world that's on the verge of collapse, to the tortured pilgrims who've given up all hope and are gambling their lives on a pipe dream shot of hope, to the "messiah of hope" the pilgrims are seeking, which is in fact in itself a missionary of pain and suffering with less empathy than one of the Greek gods.

It's brilliant and I hazard to say the best damn space opera science fiction out there. The titles, and the appearance of a character called John Keat, show that this sequence is heavily influenced by the poetry of John Keats, and it is indeed a gloriously poetic work. But it is also filled with stark and striking science fictional imagery. This is an ambitious, powerful and successful sequence that shows just how much science fiction can achieve when it sets its mind to it. Hyperion, even in , still stands as the gold standard of how to do complex space opera right.

And not just space opera, but deep space opera that explores real human themes. Hyperion is a deeply human tale about flawed humans. But it's also a tale the covers the broad spectrum too -- romance, action, space battles, AI gone amok, time travel, and much more. The first two books are best, but the sequel duology -- which covers events many many years after the fallout from the first two books -- also explores some interesting science fiction concepts too.

Look, just read the damn books -- they are the best of the best. If you want to know the most influential science fiction novel of the last thirty-odd years, look no further than William Gibson's Neuromancer. The novel didn't invent cyberpunk; two films that came out a couple of years earlier, Tron and Blade Runner, had already introduced some of the themes of cyberpunk. And the term itself was invented by Gardner Dozois talking about a novel by Bruce Bethke.

Nevertheless, it's safe to say that without Neuromancer, there would have been no cyberpunk. Neuromancer wasn't the first science fiction novel set among the low life and street people of the near future, but Gibson inhabited the Sprawl with utter conviction, inventing a street slang that caught on in the real world. In this underground, Case is a washed-up hacker whose been treated with drugs to stop him accessing the Matrix ever again, while Molly is a street samurai who offers case a cure in exchange for his services.

Through a violent world of double-dealing corporations and government cover-ups, Case and Molly risk their lives in the bright and threatening landscape of cyberspace, following a trail that eventually leads them to Wintermute, a powerful AI at a time when machine intelligence is banned. A heady mixture of computer know-how and grimy film noir action, Neuromanceris like no novel before it, a totally original and absolutely gripping take on the near future.

Neuromancer was the first novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. It also set the tone for cyberpunk and made Gibson one of the most acclaimed of modern writers. Neuromancer didn't just catch the zeitgeist, it created it, giving us terms like "cyberspace" and "ICE", and being instrumental in the way the World Wide Web developed. In a balkanised Los Angeles, where everything is privatised and the economy is breaking down, a new computer virus appears that affects the users as much as their computers.

A key part of this future is the Metaverse, Stephenson's futuristic version of the Internet where people "log on" via virtual goggles. Everything is conducted through the Metaverse, from business to dating. Stephenson not only presents us with a very realistic look at what could be, but there are some subtle social observations about the way things are different and the same.

Stephenson frames the modern social constructs intruding into this cyberworld; ones' social wealth is judged by the look of the avatar they use to interact with the Metaverse, with the wealthy being able to afford custom while the "poor" use off the shelf.

This book has it all, from hacker heroes who wield Samurai sword destruction by night in the Metaverse and deliver pizza by day for the Mob, governments and police controlled by private corporations, and a conspiracy that might the world needs some saving from. Joe Haldeman has said: This is an out and out brilliant novel that does things no science fiction novel had attempted before, and very few have attempted since.

It took the sf field by storm, and it has had a greater effect on more writers than just about any other book. The innocent man condemned to a lingering death is Gully Foyle, the sole survivor of an attack upon his ship, but when another ship passes by he is ignored. When he does manage to return to Earth he is anxious for revenge, and having unearthed a fortune he gets his chance. This is a much darker novel than most of the far future space operas being written at the time.

It's a violent story and Gully Foyle is no hero. But the rich and poetic language, the word play and the sheer fun of Bester's writing, the vivid colourful future, the breathtaking escapades, all keep us glued to the story and cheering him on. Thirty years before William Gibson wrote Neuromancer, Alfred Bester was inventing many of the tropes of cyberpunk. The result is an unputdownable novel that demands to be read over and over again.

Delany claims that this is considered by many to be the greatest single sf novel, while Robert Silverberg insists it is on everybody's top ten list. It's an unforgettable tale that just gets better every time you read it. And it's a gripping, very human, very disturbing tale about the extent men will go to for revenge, and the ultimate futility of the event. Read this one if you have not because you can't call yourself well read in the genre if you've missed it. And you might just be surprised how good the read is and how well aged it still is even in Dick was one of the most idiosyncratic and successful writers in science fiction.

Okay, he's probably better known these days for all the films that have been based on his work, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, The Adjustment Bureau and heaven knows how many others. Certainly there have been many more films based on Dick's fiction than any other sf writer. But forget the films, even the great ones, like Blade Runner, can't begin to match the compelling weirdness of the novels.

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Dick used to explore the same ideas in novel after novel. Reality was undermined, usually as a result of drugs; there was a truth under the illusion of the world, but it wasn't always good to learn that truth; things we trust turn out to be unreliable. And yet, the novels were far from samey, indeed the narrow range of obsessions resulted in an incredibly wide range of fiction. What's more, Dick wrote with a mordant wit that made his work consistently among the funniest of all science fiction.

Because he was so prolific, and because he hit the target so frequently, it is very difficult to choose just one book as a representative of his work. In the end we chose The Man in the High Castle, which in some ways seems a very untypical book because there is none of the pyrotechnic weirdness that often turns up in his fiction. Indeed, the novel seems like a fairly conventional alternate history in which the Axis Powers won the Second World War. As a result, in the s of the novel, America is divided in three; Germany rules the East Coast, Japan controls the West Coast, while a narrow independent buffer state exists between the two.

But in the end it is far from conventional. The story is full of fakes and deceptions; several major characters are travelling under false identities, some of the characters are dealing in fake American "antiquities", and Mr Tagoma, the Japanese bureaucrat who becomes central to the plot, attacks a German agent with a fake Colt revolver. All of this leads us to doubt and question what is going on; and then we come to The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a novel written with the aid of the I Ching, which describes a world in which America did not lose the war; though the world described is not the same as the one we recognise.

He followed this with two novels that both displayed an awareness of and interest in science fiction, so it was no surprise when he added the middle initial and produced a straightforward science fiction novel. What was surprising was that it was a full-blooded space opera, full of battles and last minute escapes and epic explosions. What caught everybody's attention, however, was that the novel introduced a vast, interstellar, left-wing utopia, The Culture. The Culture was an immediate hit, and over the next 30 years he produced nine more novels and a bare handful of short stories about the Culture, which grew into one of the most popular and interesting of all science fiction series.

Typically, he would look at this post-scarcity universe obliquely while concentrating on the edges, where the Culture rubbed up against other space-faring societies, and the Culture's most disreputable organisation, Special Circumstances, operated. Occasionally we would be shown what it is like in a society without money, because everything is freely available, a society in which people could be whatever they wanted, changing sex freely and even, in one instance, taking on the appearance of a bush.

It's a world of dangerous sports and comfortable living, but mostly we saw it only from the outside, through the eyes of those who did its dirty work. Zakalwe is a mercenary, a bloody and effective soldier, who has worked for Special Circumstances on a number of occasions before, but now is called on for one last mission.

In the odd-numbered chapters we follow this final mission; but in the even-numbered chapters we go backwards in time through his earlier missions and back towards the secret of his childhood. The final revelation about Zakalwe's true identity is brutal and breathtaking. The unique structure of the novel is what makes this an especially powerful story.

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And it is told with a combination of cruel, unflinching violence and sparkling wit that is typical of Banks, and helps to explain his extraordinary popularity. The Culture is one of the great inventions of science fiction, a communistic utopia that actually works.

It is also a universe absolutely stuffed with amazing inventions, including the ships that are characters in their own right and have typically witty names in Use of Weapons, for instance, we meet "Very Little Gravitas Indeed" and "Size Isn't Everything". All of the Culture novels are worth reading, and Use of Weapons is easily the most rewarding of them.

Some will recommend Player of Games as the 'best' intro to Bank's Culture novels as it's an exciting, action packed read that takes place a very personal level between characters. Consider Phlebas is another good intro, and as Culture goes, is Bank's classic "Space Opera' entry into the series. Asimov was, with Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, one of that triumvirate of star science fiction writers who first came to prominence in the late s and continued to dominate the field for another 30 years. His magnum opus was this wide-ranging tale inspired by Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

We begin with a great galactic empire that has spread peace and civilisation far and wide across space. But Hari Selden has developed the science of psychohistory which combines sociology, history and mathematics as a reliable way of foreseeing the future, and thanks to psychohistory Selden predicts that the empire is due to collapse into a dark age that will last thousand years. But if the light of civilisation can be preserved, there is a chance that this dark age will last only one thousand years, and so he establishes a Foundation at the extreme end of the galaxy from which a new empire might grow.

For a while things go as Selden had foreseen: But then something is thrown into the mix that Selden could not have anticipated: And the Mule has heard rumours of a Second Foundation at the other end of the galaxy, and he's out to find it and destroy it. But what is this Second Foundation, and where is it hiding? Epic in scope, ambitious and readable, the Foundation Trilogy deservedly won the Hugo Award for the best ever series, the only time that award was ever presented.

It is science fiction on a huge canvas, the very definition of sense of wonder. Foundation is one seminal ' Hard Science Fiction ' novels -- a form of science fiction that aims at making the science as realistic as possible. It's science fiction that puts a lot of emphasis on the 'science' part of the word, rather than relying on the sciencey magical hand waving of science fantasy to describe the science. In the course of all this belated expansion to the original conception, Asimov also managed to tie in his Robot stories to create, rather unconvincingly, a future history that united all of his major science fiction.

The series introduced the Three Laws of Robotics, one of the best-known formulations in the whole of science fiction, which has had an influence on every single robot story written since, and which has also had an effect on the actual development of robotics. The early stories all challenged the three laws in some way, with either a robot apparently disobeying one of the laws or a human agency attempting to subvert them, but the laws themselves always won out in the end. As the series went on, the focus changed from the three laws to the question of the increasing humanity of the robots, so that one of the later stories, "The Bicentennial Man", which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novelette, actually concerns a robot that becomes human.

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