ePub, 480 pages
English language
Published March 17, 2008
Consider Phlebas, first published in 1987, is a space opera novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks. It is the first in a series of novels about an interstellar post-scarcity society called the Culture. The novel revolves around the Idiran–Culture War, and Banks plays on that theme by presenting various microcosms of that conflict. Its protagonist Bora Horza Gobuchul is an enemy of the Culture. Consider Phlebas is Banks's first published science fiction novel and takes its title from a line in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land. A subsequent Culture novel, Look to Windward (2000), whose title comes from the previous line of the same poem, can be considered a loose follow-up.
This is the second Banks I’ve read and I thought they were both terrific. Unlike some epic, galaxy-spanning space operas, this was pacey, smoothly written with great characters and loads of action and adventure.
Content warning Mild spoilers
I appreciate the basic concept of the book to show the effects of a big war on various situations, how people get dragged into it (or worse) against their will. It also shows the costs. The appendix that lists the facts about the war of which the book only covers the beginning is quite sobering. This was my second time reading it and it sure reads differently now in the light of a very real war raging nearby.
Banks introduces a lot of quite imaginative concepts in this book. The Culture, their Minds, huge ships with funny names, Orbitals, Megaships, Damage, a bunker system with huge trains and formidable weapons of various kinds. Almost all of the episodes in the book kould be their own book. The main problem is that the protagonist we keep following around isn't very sympathetic. On the contrary. Same goes for the rest of the pirates we spend most of the book with. So, it's difficult to be invested in what happens to them. This isn't helped by them dying in stupid ways almost immediately. That does get a bit repetitive after a while. The final showdown in the bunker system was very captivating the second time around, too. The way gender is depicted in this book isn't very progressive, weirdly enough. It's a solid, somewhat traditional sci-fi book.
