But what has a woman doctor in a ruthless world and warrior, skilled therapist whose life is told the same as that of a bodyguard of the king's enemy and heals it serves? Its seemingly magical talents, the impenetrability of its origins and its history, they are the act of a Special Circumstances agent or the story is it completely separate from the cycle of Culture? The reader decide for himself. The account is removed, the book is read with pleasure, although I still prefer the imagination and bold futuristic assumptions and other novels of Banks, which renews masterfully space opera.