Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1) in The Alternative Worlds

Jun 26, 2011 mark monday rated it really liked it

Shelves: z-iain-banks, x-culture, scifi-60s-70s-80s

Consider Iain M. Banks. an unsentimental, often ruthless writer. his characters are provided robust emotional lives and richly detailed backgrounds... all the better to punish the reader when those characters meet their often bleak fates. his narratives are ornate affairs, elaborately designed, full of small & meaningful moments as well as huge, wide-scale world-building... all the better to deliver a sucker punch directly to the reader's gut when those narratives turn out to be ironic, predeter Consider Iain M. Banks. an unsentimental, often ruthless writer. his characters are provided robust emotional lives and richly detailed backgrounds... all the better to punish the reader when those characters meet their often bleak fates. his narratives are ornate affairs, elaborately designed, full of small & meaningful moments as well as huge, wide-scale world-building... all the better to deliver a sucker punch directly to the reader's gut when those narratives turn out to be ironic, predetermined mousetraps. yet despite the cruelly intelligent design of his novels, a strong case can be made that Banks is a fiery humanist - if the idea of "humanism" is expanded to include all forms of consciousness, including the psychologically aberrant, including artificial minds. is there a genre specialist who is a more passionate yet clear-eyed (even cold-eyed) partisan for the right of all conscious beings to pursue their own individual desires, dreams, and destinies - while not fucking up the lives of other beings? even his utopic, galaxy-spanning civilization The Culture has its own major achilles' heel in their theoretically positive desire to improve the self-determination of other cultures.

Consider Consider Phlebas. now this is a SPACE OPERA. it has it all. multiple alien cultures in a race against time and each other. sentient machines. piratical mercenaries. world-hopping. the destruction of 'orbitals' and entire cities. a graveyard world overseen by a transcended being. an incredibly advanced, liberal, permissive society in conflict with barbaric, right-wing, militaristic religious fanatics. a shape-shifting spy for a protagonist (a very canny choice in regards to providing an outsider perspective on The Culture). it is filled to the brim with so many things, including a handful of long digressions in the first half of the novel, chapters that are pretty much only side-adventures (some of which seem like trial runs for ideas expanded upon in Player of Games and the non-Culture Algebraist). despite the length of the novel, despite wide-ranging adventures and misadventures, the blood & vengeance, the extreme presentations of eating & defecating, despite the in-depth detail present in all that running-about in the tunnels of Graveyard World, despite the whole sturm und drang of it all... this is an intimate novel. intimate in its character work and almost peculiarly intimate in the way that Banks allows his ethical concerns, his - one could say - almost rigid moralism to dominate the proceedings. this is not a tale of crazy adventures that eventually finds its way to a punchy end; this is a novel of rigorously political ideas (and, perhaps, ideals). those ideas are carefully encapsulated within each sequence, by the grand conflict at hand, and by the eventual fates of each one of its major characters.

the choice of the title is wonderful. how fitting! i was also reminded of another well-known passage:

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Banks is not a depressing writer. he can have a light touch. his novels are full of life, full of wit and love and laughter and bravery and mindboggling invention. and yet they are often a rather depressing experience. i can see why some folks avoid him. i can understand why some dislike Consider Phlebas and its often uncomfortable combination of digressive high adventure and stark, moralistic political analogies. hey, the world can be an awfully shitty place and so why immerse yourself in more of the same? although he is easy to read, Banks certainly doesn't make things easy on readers and their various sentimental attachments. he chooses discomfort and tragedy at nearly every turn.

well who ever said that utopian ideals are an easy thing? striving for utopia should be hard! it should be long and difficult and heartbreaking and full of intensely uncomfortable ambiguity. it should make you want to cry, little baby.

...more

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Mar 25, 2008 Brad rated it really liked it

Shelves: worth-reading-twice, sci-fi, north-atlantic, to-read-again, space-opera, banks-culture-novel

I'm not really sure what to say about Consider Phlebas. It was, quite fittingly, the first Culture book I read, though it was my fourth Banks book (preceded by The Wasp Factory, Dead Air, & The Bridge respectively). And now it is the third Banks book I've reread (The Wasp Factory twice, and Use of Weapons once).

I like it very much, so I feel a little sad that many friends I respect don't love it as much as I and a good deal of them just think it is mostly okay.

I love that Horza is an unlikable p ...more

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Oct 03, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it liked it

Shelves: own, posthuman, space-opera, science-fiction, artificial-intelligence, 2009-read

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I had a good time reading Consider Phlebas. Iain M. Banks manages to mix technobabble with description and dialogue to come out with fascinating societies and intense action sequences. The plot was simple, and pretty linear, but it got the characters where they needed to go and blow things up. Beneath it all, there were the questions Banks raises about what it means to be human, about how we plan to interact with machines when they are just as intelligent as—more intelligent than—we are. My elat ...more

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Apr 02, 2008 Terence rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: speculative-fiction

One of these days I should get around to reviewing the entire Culture series. Of the many fantasy and SF worlds I've read about in my 40+ years of reading, there are only two I'd actually want to live in: Jacqueline Carey's Terre D'Ange and Iain Banks' Culture.

I cannot recommend the series highly enough. ...more

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Oct 21, 2009 Simon rated it it was ok

Shelves: sf, npr-top-100

Banks is another one of those mixed authors for me. I've read his books on and off over the years and had quite a varied reaction to them. It is curious, perhaps, that although I predominantly read genre fiction, with Banks I tend to prefer his non genre material. Of his SF, the only book I really liked was "Player of Games".

I guess what I don't really like is the way Iain Banks wrote SF. He may have been, as some claim, instrumental in reinventing the "Space Opera" sub-genre, it was never a sub ...more

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Oct 02, 2010 Ryandake rated it it was amazing

Shelves: the-good-shit

so this is my second read of Consider Phlebas. it's been long enough that i remember the outline, but had forgotten the details, which is actually a very nice space to be, as a reader. i needn't fly through the exciting bits to find out what happened, and i can think about the work in the larger universe of having read (what will, sadly, now be) all of the other Culture novels.

Consider Phlebas holds up quite well. the plot is still quite ripper, pulling you along by the unmentionable hairs. the so this is my second read of Consider Phlebas. it's been long enough that i remember the outline, but had forgotten the details, which is actually a very nice space to be, as a reader. i needn't fly through the exciting bits to find out what happened, and i can think about the work in the larger universe of having read (what will, sadly, now be) all of the other Culture novels.

Consider Phlebas holds up quite well. the plot is still quite ripper, pulling you along by the unmentionable hairs. the larger philosophical questions are even more relevant now than when the book was written. and as a Culture wannabe, one can't help but ponder a question that seems all but answered in other Culture novels: is it a good thing for humans to give over power to artificial intelligences? no matter how alive, no matter how advanced.

the story concerns a tiny bit of the war between the Culture and the Idirans. our protagonist is neither Culture nor Idiran, but has sided with the Idirans because he believes in their core belief: Culture Minds and Culture machine intelligences are an abomination. he is by virtue of a unique personal history dragooned into chasing an infant Mind to a damned planet.

opposing him is a Culture ambassador and Special Circumstances agent, a woman who by her Culture upbringing should be a kinder, gentler soul.

who is fighting whom gets tricky in this book--alliances shift for reasons of temporary expediency or dire need or even love, and anybody's success at their mission is always up to one more roll of the dice. the book lacks the sort of inevitability of later Culture novels--one can be reasonably sure that the Culture is always going to win, whichever of the individuals in it loses.

Banks fans who somehow missed this first in the series may well find it an illuminating read. Banks apparently had at least a qualm or two about the Culture at the git-go. this work isn't as funny as later works can be, but it's still very much worth a read.

not-yet fans of the series... you are in for a serious treat, one not just full of derring-do and close escapes, but also with serious meat and bone at the core.

read this, then think about what you've already given up next time you ask Siri for directions to the local taco stand. ...more

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May 04, 2008 This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, space-opera

A story that really didn't grab me, a lot of the book was more travelogue than plot, having the character(s) go through new and unique places so the author could show off his imagination. The second half of the book is better than the first half, but even here there is a rather pointlessness to the whole thing (although, arguably, part of the theme of the book is pointlessness). When it was all said and done I really didn't even really understand what story the author was trying to tell. ...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Michelle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book_club, wow-wtf, ebook, sci-fi

a changer (a rare, humanoid race that can alter features and body type to impersonate others) James Bonds his way across several galaxies on a mission for his non-humanoid employers; numerous adventures ensue. the story careens from one high-tension escape to another, many of which are cinematically flashy, but frustratingly few of them actually move the plot forward. while many of the supporting characters are engaging, the changer is a rather unlikable ass, so when awful things happen to him ( ...more

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Oct 23, 2009 Peregrine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009, sci-fi

This story, vast in scope, is perhaps best viewed from a distance. On the galactic stage, lights pick out and follow chaotic action, swinging wildly for the first half of the book. Alternately stretched in the attempt to understand and follow, and compressed by the huge scale, the reader can feel overwhelmed. This is in keeping with the experience of most of the characters in the book. Who am I as an individual, among trillions, where just about everything is a power greater than myself? Where d ...more

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Aug 23, 2019 Eric rated it liked it

Finally finished. I read this in fits and starts. The last third an improvement over the middle third which dragged. For me, Iain Banks (R.I.P.) was decent at writing action scenes, although the spacial perspective was challenging for me. I found Iain Banks' descriptions of larger scenes to be confusing, esp. the spectacular celestial settings and the layout of the final scene. This book was written in the 80's and might borrow a few British terms (but not many) but it was breaking some ground s ...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Suz rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, book-club, space-opera, science-fiction

So I finally did finish the book, and while I did not enjoy reading the first bits of it, I really enjoyed the last 250-200pp of the book. I think. I'm also going to blame most of my issues with the book on the fact that it's the author's first soiree with sci-fi... I think.

The main character, Horza, is a shape-shifter who has volunteered to be in the war against the Culture. The Culture is, basically, a society descended from humanity who, in their hedonistic, easy-going, and fruitful lives, sp ...more

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