Consider Phlebas

Culture Series, Book 1

By: Iain M. Banks

Narrated by: Peter Kenny

Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.
War rages across the galaxy. Billions have died, billions more are doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, face cold-blooded, brutal destruction. The Idirans ­fight for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles are at stake. There can be no surrender.

Within this cosmic conflict, a crucial battle of wits is waged. Deep within a fabled labyrinth, on a Planet of the Dead forbidden to mortals, lies a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans desperately seek it. It is the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, to actually ­find it - and with it their own destruction.

The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art

Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist

©1987 Iain M. Banks (P)2010 Hachette Digital

Critic reviews

'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson

outstanding reading, so-so plot

Would you try another book from Iain M. Banks and/or Peter Kenny?

I'd try Iain Banks again. I read another book of his which is very good. But this one tales off badly, despite some good ideas. It's like he was a chess player who learnt a lot about openings but had no experience in end games. It goes off like a damp squibb.Ok, this is the first in the series, and others say later books are better and this is necessary background. That might be so. But it doesn't stand alone.Granted, this was one of his first books, written nearly 40 years ago, but it's not that the technology is dated. He just didn't know where his story was leading; at least within this book.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

More of a sense by the end of why we should have been interested in the book

Which scene was your favorite?

Peter Kenny's reading is outstanding. His capacity for different voices and accents, consistently maintained is very impressive. He makes the listening very interesting, and rarely if ever gets the sense of a sentence wrong.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No

Disappointing

This is a review of the first third of the book, after which I abandoned it.
It is supposed to be a space opera but all I got was some close-space B-movie action. In about 6 hours of book the hero has escaped some 4 or 5 Bond-like death-threatening sititations using some clever expedient and gadgets just like Bond. I mean, really 80s stuff like he has to win a fight with a big brute to survive, twice he is tied up while having a clever conversation with the evil guy, an escape from an exploding ship and the likes.
On top of that is a bit gory which I don't personally like.
After all that boredom, Banks was setting the stage for some violent and probably cruel game popular in the future where some poor guy was probably going to suffer a violent and gory death. Well, we have seen that already in many not-very-good movies so I just quit.
Sure, the story would probably pick up later, fans will say, but the start was very disappointing.

very, very good

Would you consider the audio edition of Consider Phlebas to be better than the print version?

Yes - the narration is superb with a neutral english accent and with varied, unique and pitch-perfect accents to each character.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Kraiklyn - amoral and generally incompetent but not stupid and with irrepressible self-belief. "Easy in, easy out."

Which scene was your favorite?

Escaping the mega ship immediately following its collision with the iceberg

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

For a mostly serious story, in places it can be very funny.

Any additional comments?

I somehow missed Iain Banks' works when growing up. Unlike most greater than decade-old sci-fi it has dated extremely well and am enjoying catching up on them all.

A nice start to something that really grew up

Culture novels in their infancy are still good reads (listening). Not quite the level of some later installments by Mr. Banks but entertaining space-operas for a bit more mature audiences.

Overrated

Alarm bells should have been raised about the Culture series for me when in the at least two decades the series has had to seep into pop culture that I've never heard any praise heaped on its stories. Turns out there is a reason for that. Scenery porn and verbal diarrhea dominates this work. No likeable characters anywhere and plodding pacing makes this writing as fascinating as listening to paint drying maybe even constituting a form or audible torture. The only hint at redeeming quality in this work was the narrator who brought his best to book but even his delightful skill couldn't save this dumpster fire of book from going into the annals of obscurity. Save yourself the trouble and read a wiki about this series. It's more interesting.

awful, awful book

just terrible. disjointed, awful. boring. depressing. terrible! seriously avoid this by all means necessary. I truly regret reading this.

interminable snore

I really wanted to like this, but I simply couldn't get through the plodding pace and the story arc that took so long to develop that my mind wandered off. I finally decided to be good to myself and stop this self-abuse by quitting this story before it got anywhere close to the end.

Snorefest

What could Iain M. Banks have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Edit out 50%.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Consider Phlebas?

Edit everywhere.

Any additional comments?

Painful degree of detail. Are all his books like this? "He placed his right foot on the ground, feeling the weight first in the heel, then across the arch, then in the toes." OK, I exaggerate... but you probably know the sort of book I mean. INCESSANT detail that just doesn't matter to the story, and, in fact, dilutes what are good ideas way past the point of boredom. My first book from the famous Banks. Just couldn't do it. Definitely not for me. Won't read another of his books.