Lazy Gun

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The Lazy Gun is a fictional weapon from Iain M. Banks' science fiction novel Against a Dark Background. The novel focuses on a group led by Lady Sharrow seeking the last of the Lazy Guns.

[edit] Description

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The eight Lazy Guns were mysterious ancient objects, discovered together a long time before the events of the book.

A Lazy Gun is roughly half a metre long, 30 cm wide and 20 cm tall. On the front are two short cylinders that end in black lenses. A sight extends from the main body, as do two hand grips. A metallic strap allows the Lazy Gun to be fired from the waist. On one hand grip is a zoom control and on the other grip is a trigger mechanism. The Lazy gun is massy but light, and weighs three times as much when turned upside down. The Lazy Gun is the only weapon known to display a sense of humour.

To fire the Lazy Gun, it is pointed at the target, zoomed in, and then the trigger is pulled. What happens next is unpredictable. When fired at humans, many different things may occur. An anchor may appear above the person, giant electrodes may appear on either side of the target and electrocute them or an animal may tear their throat out. Larger targets such as tanks or ships may suffer tidal waves, implosion, explosion, sudden lava flows or just disappear. When fired at cities and other such targets, thermonuclear explosions are the norm, although in one instance a comet crashed into the city.

[edit] Story

There were originally eight Lazy Guns. Seven of these were destroyed before the events of Against a Dark Background. One disappeared with its user when he tried to fire it at the local sun, one suffered a lucky strike during an air raid, two self destructed when investigators tried to take them apart and another was destroyed by an assassin. A sixth was destroyed when investigators fired it with its lenses looking through an electron microscope. An area for about half a kilometre around was replaced by a lake teeming with ocean life. The seventh, found before the events of the book by the Lady Sharrow and her team, was destroyed by the university it was sold to when they tampered with it. The resulting explosion devastated the city the university was located in.

The hunt for the eighth and final Lazy Gun is the main plot theme of Against a Dark Background. Much of the novel concerns Sharrow's adventures in searching for and acquiring it. Her motivation is that the Huhsz religious cult regard it as a sacred object, and that if she can find it and give it to them, their vendetta against her will lapse.

When the last Lazy Gun is eventually discovered, it is guarded by an elaborate defence system incorporating a genetic key which Sharrow has to deactivate.