Read Feersum Endjinn by Iain M Banks (288 pages)

Grab a drink from the bar and join us in the snug (the room directly opposite the main door) for Feersum Endjinn by Iain M Banks.

In a future where the ancients have long since departed Earth for the stars, those left behind live complacent lives filled with technological marvels they no longer understand. Then a cosmic threat known as the Encroachment begins a devastating ice age on Earth, and it sets in motion a series of events that will bring together a cast of original characters who must struggle through war, political intrigues and age-old mysteries to save the world. (B 4worned, 1 oph Banx' carrokters theenx en funetic inglish, which makes for some tough reading but also some innovative prose.)

Count Sessine is about to die for the very last time ...

Chief Scientist Gadfium is about to receive the mysterious message she has been waiting for from the Plain of Sliding Stones ...

And Bascule the Teller, in search of an ant, is about to enter the chaos of the crypt ...

And everything is about to change ...

For this is the time of the encroachment and, although the dimming sun still shines on the vast, towering walls of Serehfa Fastness, the end is close at hand. The King knows it, his closest advisers know it, yet sill they prosecute the war against the clan Engineers with increasing savagery.

The crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent, an emissary who holds the key to all their futures.

Feersum Endjinn (amazon) (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1857232739/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1857232739&linkCode=as2&tag=posapobooclun-21)