Consider Phlebas

, #1

471 pages

English language

Published Dec. 1, 1987 by Macmillan.

ISBN:
978-0-333-44138-1
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OCLC Number:
15197422

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4 stars (3 reviews)

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.

4 editions

Elements of a Great SciFi but Not Executed

3 stars

No real world building even though the world we get a glimpse of is fascinating. We are left wanting and not in a good way. A lot of it was, well, meaningless. We want this book to be more. We actually need it to be more. That it doesn't even com close is what is so depressing. That said, we are eager to read the next recommended book in the series to hopefully see if he does give us more, in a good way.

A ton of imaginative concepts but it doesn't quite work

3 stars

Content warning Mild spoilers

Subjects

  • Imaginary wars and battles
  • Fiction