I think that this is the best 'Culture' book of them all.

It is well populated with ship minds expressing their quirky and logical ideas while achieving a somewhat utopian consensus society providing the backdrop to the 'subliming' of a similar society (the Gazilt) where 'human' intrigue threatens to derail the whole process.

Meanwhile the story follows on character Vyr Cossont a four armed Gazilt, who has made it her ambition to play T. C. Vilabier’s 26th String-Specific Sonata For An Instrument Yet To Be Invented, MW 1211 - the Hydrogen Sonata on her bodily acoustic Antagonistic Undecagonstring prior to subliming. But due to her acquaintance with the universe's oldest man, she becomes involved in a search to determine if the Gazilt 'holy book' was in fact a hoax or an experiment perpetrated many years earlier.

This leads to a story of political intrigue, morals and science that is as humorous as it is entertaining and engaging.