Consider Phlebas

By: Iain M. Banks

Narrated by: Peter Kenny

Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction - cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.

Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.

©1987 Iain M. Banks (P)2011 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Dazzlingly original." (Daily Mail)

"Gripping, touching and funny." (TLS)

What was the point?

Long, lots of pointless sidebars and no overriding theme or plot detected. Eminently forgettable and not worth the time.

May I please emigrate to the Culture?

Consider Phlebas is amazingly well written and has a truly tremendous development of characters. The novel is a nearly unrivaled and sophisticated creation of a utopian world.

Classic Banks.

This book shows why he was one if sci-fi best. Traditional, epic, hard sci-fi with a Banks's post modern twist.

Great reader.

I'm halfway through this audio book and I just wanted to say Peter Kenny is doing a great job! I'm not much into sci fi/ fantasy, but he makes it more engaging with his range of voice acting.

Good but a lot going on

I enjoyed the book. The reading/ performance was fine. The multiple names and tribes made following the story difficult. I think I would have liked it better if I read it, rather than listened.

A tough read with some bright spots

I found this a bit of a hard read. I really got to this book by wanting to read “The Player of Games,”and since this preceded it I figured I’d give it a shot. I will continue on to POG but I’m slightly nervous that this writing style is a bit dense for me. There are some spectacular ideas and visual concepts here but I found them to few and far between complicated and convoluted writing.

Not Iain Banks Best Work

I love the culture series, and this is the first book published, However I'd recommend starting later in the series - the other books in the series are more compelling.

the scope and moral ambiguity

I love the cold open. this is a story being told but not to the reader. it's the reader's responsibility to pick up the details and make sense of it, which I enjoy. the scope and moral ambiguity reminds me of malazan, just not quite that big.

First novel

Decent enough story; not as well-written as
I had expected. A little hard to follow at points.

An adventure story

I prefer science fiction that explores big ideas. This an adventure story is lots of well written action. I found this tedious, but if you enjoy action, you might love it.