Paperback, 188 pages
English language
Published April 11, 2007 by Night Shade Books.
The first ever collection of Iain Banks’s short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale.
While I don't particularly care for some of the other short stories in the collection, the main novella that the volume is named after ("The State of the Art") is one of my favorite in the Culture series. Seeing a culture citizen interact with present day earth makes the commentary (on both the Culture and our own society) all the more impactful.
Purchasable
https://bookshop.org/a/102303/9780316565646.