On this world, different sorts of people live and interact one with the other. Some of them are human and still in the middle-age
level of science. That's the case of King Hausk, who is trying to dominate the other people on his level. He is perpetually in war, and during one of these wars with his neighbours, he gets treatorously killed by his best friend and
second in command Tyl Loesp. His son Ferbin, witness of the killing flies from his country and tries to get help from other worlds. The second son, Oramen, ignorant of the drama, is in jeopardy. Their sister
Anaplian, now a special circumstances agent for The Culture leaves everything to go home and help them. This is a very bizarre book, as the main characters are perfectly human, their world basically looks like ours. When the action takes place on their level, this could be a Fabtasy book. On the other hand, there are lots of other worlds with forms of life completely alien to us. Some of them even get the eternal life and can adopt whatever physical form they wish for. Anaplian became a man for some years before changing back to woman.
To travel in this massively imaginative book will enchant the science-fiction geeks, the many (more than 400!) pages get us enrapt and fold us in the mind of the author, where I did get lost a lot of time !