San Francisco: McAdam / Cage, 2007. First edition - "Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair, and a multi-million dollar gaming business lie at the heart of Iain Banks' fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built their fortune on a board game called Empire, now a wildly successful computer game. So successful the American Spraint Corporation want to buy the Wopulds out.. . a story of family turmoil, compromised loyalties, and hidden origins." 390 pp.

New York: CDS Books, (2004). Hardcover first edition - Foreword by R. A. Salvatore. "A man without a past, Rileigh takes his name from an enigmatic note he finds on his person. Pursued through the port city of Qeynos by a necromancer and a shadowknight, the charming devil-may-care rogue eludes his mysterious assailants by stealing anothers place aboard a ship bound for the pirate-infested Barren Coast. He finds himself embroiled in a quest to retrieve four stolen objects of power that once belonged to an ancient dragon." 298 pp. ISBN: 1-593150202.