GCU Grey Area has a reputation for cruelty, and it's not entirely undeserved. Is there anything that can challenge its own sense of moral superiority? Right or wrong, there's usually a reason behind geopolitical events.

I've added all 25 chapters. On the planet Reast, something is playing with the locals. And a team from Special Circumstances is sent to find out what is going on. The Culture needs to know, and they have a very good reason for making sure that nobody else finds out. Sometimes, the most dangerous people are the ones you trust the most.

This is a Culture prequel, set about 8000 years before Consider Phlebas.

A man awakes after dying to find that life can be stranger than fiction.

After returning from the events of "The Player of Games", Jernau Morat Gurgeh finds himself asked to go on just one more secret mission for Special Circumstances.