Kate Telman is a senior executive officer in The Business, a powerful and massively discreet transglobal organisation. Financially transparent, internally democratic and disavowing conventional familial inheritance, the character of The Business seems, even to Kate, to be vague to the point of invisibility. It possesses, allegedly, a book of Leonardo cartoons, several sets of Crown Jewels and wants to buy its own State in order to acquire a seat at the United Nations.
Kate’s job is to keep abreast of current technological developments and her global reach encompasses Silicon Valley, a ranch in Nebraska, the firm’s secretive Swiss headquarters, and a remote Himalayan principality. In the course of her journey Kate must peel away layers of emotional insulation and the assumptions of a lifetime. She must learn to keep her world at arm’s length.
To take control, she has to do The Business.
Kate’s job is to keep abreast of current technological developments and her global reach encompasses Silicon Valley, a ranch in Nebraska, the firm’s secretive Swiss headquarters, and a remote Himalayan principality. In the course of her journey Kate must peel away layers of emotional insulation and the assumptions of a lifetime. She must learn to keep her world at arm’s length.
To take control, she has to do The Business.
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Reviews
Imagination, wit and complexity are Banks' hallmarks and The Business is no exception
A highly inventive piece of work, amusing and sinister by turns... crammed with arresting conceits and surprises... any chapter of The Business, picked at random, will give an idea of Iain Bank's merits: the technical pizzazz, the profound compassion, above all an understanding of the way the world works ripe to confound the average English novelist who thinks that 'science' is simply a noisy irrelevance
It is impressive to find a British writer with such evident range... intellectually exhilarating
A poisoned bonbon, a bitter fairy tale... Written with enormous energy, crunchy wit and more curves than an alpine road
Eng. Lit. for the age of www