Splintered Suns

The “proper galaxy-spanning space opera” series continues with a treasure hunt that could unlock an advanced civilization's lost technologies (Ian M. Banks).

For Pyke and his crew of thieves, the plan was simple enough: Travel to a backwater desert planet, break into a museum, steal a tracking device, then use it to find a ship buried in the planet's vast and trackless sandy wastes.

Except that the museum vault is a bio-engineered chamber, and the tracking device is sought-after by another gang of treasure hunters led by an old adversary of Pyke's, the devious Raven Kaligara. Also, the ship is a quarter of a million years old, about two kilometers long, and somewhere onboard is a mysterious relic that promises to unlock all the treasures and technologies of a lost civilization…