About the book: 2002 / Ian M. Banks is one of the recognized masters of “intellectual space opera,” a writer who created his own Universe. A universe in which there is a WAR... A war between the two largest galactic civilizations - the Republican Culture and the Idiran Empire. A war in which the Culture was drawn in only to save its peace of mind... the most valuable thing it had. A war that the Idirans started because they understood: jihad must expand so as not to become meaningless. A war that lasted for forty-eight years and one month. The total number of fallen is 851.4 billion. Ship losses - 91,215,660. Number of planets destroyed - 53. Scientists considered this war the most significant conflict in the last fifty thousand years of Galactic history. Here is one of the episodes of this war. An episode that is said to have begun on a planet called the World of Shara…