A Gift from the Culture
"A Gift from the Culture", published in 1987, is a short work of space opera, by the Scottish science fiction author Iain M. Banks. The story is an early venture into the "complex and unusual and very distant" setting of the Culture, which Banks would further develop through various of full length novels, stories, and his essay "A Few Notes on the Culture".
Use of Weapons
According to Banks, he wrote a much longer version of the book in 1974, long before any of his books (science fiction or otherwise) were published. The book had an even more complicated structure ("It was impossible to comprehend without thinking in six dimensions") but already introduced the Culture as background for the story of Cheradenine Zakalwe. Realising that his intended structure was a "fatal flaw", not least because it demanded the story's climax appear exactly half-way through, Banks moved on to write Against a Dark Background instead. The book's cryptic acknowledgement credits friend and fellow science fiction author Ken MacLeod with the suggestion "to argue the old warrior out of retirement" (to rewrite the old book) and further credits him with suggesting "the fitness programme" (the new structure). MacLeod makes use of similar structures in his own novels, most notably in "The Stone Canal".