'Fierce contemporaneity, an acrobat imagination, social comment, sardonic wit... the peculiar sub-culture of cult religion is a natural for Banks' The Times

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing... Innocent in the ways of the world, an ingenue when it comes to pop and fashion, the Elect of God of a small but committed Stirlingshire religious cult, Isis Whit is no ordinary teenager.

When her cousin Morag - Guest of Honour at the Luskentyrian's four-yearly Festival of Love - disappears after renouncing her faith, Isis is marked out to venture among the Unsaved and bring the apostate back into the fold. But the road to Babylondon (as Sister Angela puts it) is a treacherous one, particularly when Isis discovers that Morag appears to have embraced the ways of the Unsaved with spectacular abandon...

Praise for Iain Banks:

'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times

'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian

'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman

'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman