Against a Dark Background cover art

Against a Dark Background

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Against a Dark Background

By: Iain M. Banks
Narrated by: Peter Kenny
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.99

Buy Now for $33.99

About this listen

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.

Lady Sharrow was once the fearless leader of a combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the vicinity of the planet Golter. Now she is hunted by the Huhsz - a religious cult hellbent on assassinating her - and her only hope of escape is to ­find the last of the apocalyptically powerful Lazy Guns before the Huhsz track her down.

Her journey through the exotic Golterian system is a destructive and savage odyssey into her past, and that of her family and of the system itself.

Books by Iain M. Banks:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist

©1993 Iain M. Banks (P)2012 Hachette Digital Science Fiction Fiction

Critic Reviews

"Imaginatively brilliant." (Daily Mail)
"Banks ain't kidding. He warned you up front that this is a dark novel." (Norman Spinrad)

"Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth." (The New York Review of Science Fiction)
All stars
Most relevant  
the only Iain M Banks that I've not greatly enjoyed. the characters are ok, the story is reasonably interesting, but it lacks any real depth and the ending seems to me to be a bit weak

Not one of his best stories

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
not up to the standard of other banks books.

still worth listening to. it is rather hard to follow at times.

quite a good yarn

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A dark story of a flawed character from Banks. Kenny's range of voices and story-telling is really impressive.

Brilliant story read brilliantly

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Iain M. Banks doesn't disappoint with another hugely imaginative piece of work expertly delivered by Peter Kenny. Although lacking the quintessential humor of the Cultures minds, this story holds it's own in the unmistakable style which you will all recognize.

Another masterpiece

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
narrator is fab at voice characterisation. story is good but rather dark - no happy ending - left me a bit unsatisfied.

great narration. story a bit grim.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have read this a few times now and it keeps bearing fruit. I lover Peter Kenny’s voice, a perfect companion to this crafted work, a multi layered work with the ultimate take no sh1t heroine.

A fully complete work of genius craftsmanship

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I skipped 9 of the last chapters so i could finish the book, after trying my best to get into the first 20hrs.
I couldn't get into the storyline or the characters at all. I wanted to like this book, i really did ... but it is about 4x longer than it should be.
I felt altogether detached from this story.

Too long, boring, pointless.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.