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Consider Phlebas
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I'm just about to start reading this one - I read The Player of Games first, because some fellow games-players recommended it specifically. So I'm having to go backwards to read the series in order. Glad to hear you enjoyed it so much! :)
I've always wanted to read Banks. Thanks for suggesting what sounds like a great place to start, Michael!
Rachel, I'm about 125 pages into Player of Games and loving it so far. Definitely much more low key and character-centric than Phlebas (not that Banks didn't develop it's main players, he did) but in a different way. It seems like he's examining motives and consequences much more deeply in this one...very interested to see where he goes with it! Additionllay, more clues are coming out re. life in the Culture on an individual level whereas, in Phlebas it mostly concentrated on core beliefs and philosphies.Jason...no problem. I guess they are all stand-alones so...might as well start with the earliest. I heard his writing just gets better and tighter as the series progresses as well.
best
Michael
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Frankly, in reading Banks, it is the personalities of the various AIs, from personal ones to huge spaceships, that intrigue me even more than the human characters. I love how snarky and sarcastic and even witty they can be.
Jon wrote: "I agree with most of whats been said here.. The universe was a blending of Revelation Space and Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth and Void Series. The Culture is darker than the Commonwealth but bri..."Excession was one of his best IMHO and would be a good one to read next.
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i would suggest the next in the series, The Player of Games.
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It was some time ago that I read it, but I believe I captured my thoughts on it in my review http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
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Just started the Culture series this year, I've read Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games so far. I enjoyed both.Consider Phlebas is just an explosion of world-building. I feel like Banks had a thousand ideas for species and technologies and situations that he desperately wanted to get on paper, and this book was the result.
I actually think The Player of Games is a better introduction to the series for most people, because it explains the basics of the Culture without as much of an information overload. At the same time I kind of missed the chaos of Consider Phlebas when I was reading it; Player has a much more conventional narrative arc, not that that's necessarily a bad thing.
I've got this one on the shelf, but haven't planned to read it until I finish the Revelation Space SERIES (which I haven't even started yet)... maybe I will bump it up before then.
I am very excited to read this for the June discussion thread!
This is one of my favourite authors. I have read everything he has written as 'M' Banks and I really only came across one dud which was The State of the Art. Just a bit overwritten, if you get my drift. I have read Phlebas several times and it never disappoints. Surface Detail is also a good read with a brilliant thread of a virtual hell world where people opt to go.
Whilst not strictly SciFi Walking on Glass by Iain (no M) Banks is a truly fascinating novel set in two realities one being a castle built from books and illuminated by glowing fish swimming in the floors. A very good read IMHO.
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I do need to read more of Banks-without-the-M's novels. the only ones I've read are Complicity and of course The Wasp Factory
my favorite of the M. Banks books is still Consider Phlebas. least favorite is Against a Dark Background
mark wrote: "nice to see another fan of this fantastic author!...and of course The Wasp Factory"
Yes, The Wasp Factory was brilliant. And agree Against a Dark Background was a struggle. Similarly The Algebraist which was very heavy going then got quite good only to fall a bit flat at the end. But a couple of 'not-so-goods' out of a comprehensive library is pretty decent.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Wasp Factory (other topics)Against a Dark Background (other topics)
The Algebraist (other topics)
Surface Detail (other topics)
The State of the Art (other topics)
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I'm not really a big space opera/massive 15,000 page/bajillion word/multi volume set type of guy but I figured...well, I gave Alastair Reynolds a shot with "Pushing Ice" (meh), Charles Stross with "Singularity Sky" (double meh) and "Iron Sunrise" (getting better) so, why not give Banks a shot? It always seemed to me that these fellas were mentioned concurrently in the same sentence anyway so...I dove in with his first Culture novel.
"Consider Phlebas"---title taken from an except from the poem "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot with an epigram as follows..."Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
The surface story is basically a chaining together of one massively huge set piece after another and follows the adventures of main character Horza and his quest across the galaxy to secure a super mega AI that has gone dark during the throes of a huge space war between two races, obviously with differing philosophical raison d'etre. The story is told in a way that would make a David Lean movie look like a cartoon and enabled me to fly though this 450 page book in no time. Gripping and cinematic would be understatements.
And if the book was just that, I would still give it 5 stars but, I found it to be much much more actually upon reflection. Themes became clearer after the devastatingly great, albiet dark and depressing ending. In terms of the Eliot quote, a sense of one man's actions and deeds in a future universe that is incomprehensibly large are reduced to nothing. Phlebas, a drowned hero in the poem seems to be directly referenced to Horza (disclaimer here...I have not actually read the poem, but have read excerpts and a great, in depth analysis comparing the two works here: http://fearfulsymmetryuk.wordpress.co... ). There are also links to the grail story which I should have picked up and now seem obvious but, the most interesting thing for me was the successful way Banks conveyed a sense of scope. From the vast wasteland of the known and unknown universe where ships and ringworlds exist capable of supporting billions of people and are maintained by mega-intelligent machine minds right down to the aforementioned deeds of one man and his small group of companions...AND the way Banks accomplishes the seemingly impossible, tying these two extremes together revealed in the ending that goes right down to the final paragraph...well, it's all done masterfully. For a first science fiction novel...wow!!
Onwards and upwards..."Player of Games" next.
best
Michael