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)

Just couldn't get into it

I know Ian Banks has a huge following but just could not get into this. would find at times my mind wandering and would then be lost to what was happening in the book.

Good for what it is.

If you could sum up Consider Phlebas in three words, what would they be?

Unlikable Characters. Beep.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Inevitable.

What does Peter Kenny bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I don't remember

Any additional comments?

I don't really tend to like Ian Banks' Characters. They are all pretty unlikable. If you can deal with that, then this is a good book.

Don't let the crappy (pardon the pun) first chapter deter you. Things get better.

early culture novel with a lot of action

not as cerebral as the later books. a bit to much, "he will never get out of this one"

Changed my life.

Space is my passion, spaceflight, Astronomy, and especially Aerospace. As a huge Elon Musk fan, after he announced that the new Drone Ship was named after yet another craft from a Banks novel I decided I needed to give it a chance.

Honestly best Audio book I’ve heard so far, knocked The Martian off the number one spot. The narrator Peter Kenny does an outstanding job and bringing the story to life.

If your reading this and deciding on buying this book... BUY IT!

get it

for real. get it. do it. stop making that face and just do it.

10/10

Great world building.

This book is like the opposite of Neuromancer which I just finished before it(great book also but very informal structure). It’s very clearly written but very long. I think it’s worth the journey if you like delving into a really carefully thought out and realistic sci fi universe. Only minor downside is that because the author loves to write details about people thoughts and sprinkle in history it makes it feel like it takes a long time to advance. But if you enjoy reading those details it’s a joy to read.

That’s not to say that there isn’t fast paced action. There’s actually a lot of very tense action in this book and many surprises. It follows the adventures of an assassin in a huge intergalactic war. One side of the war, called the Culture, is a anarcho-communist society of sorts where super intelligent machines coexist and maintain a massive society of trillions of people. This book takes place outside of the Culture for the most part, and our main subject and assassin is working for the other side.

The audiobook has a wonderful performance by Peter Kenny. He does a lot of great voices although his American accent is slightly off but it hardly matters. It does a lot to help you distinguish the characters apart and give them a charm that I love.

Great sci-fi universe!

I’m hooked! I’m normally a big fan of military sci-fi so I gave this a shot. It’s a unique story and I love the in universe science. It seems more advanced than normal sci-fi series I’ve read and drives my imagination wild and wish I could ask others what they picture in their minds eye. The journey of the character is quiet emotional and draining in a good way. He’s so sure he’s on the right side he can’t see himself contradicting himself and I wanted to slap the guy at times. I kept expecting the book to end only to see I had hours left. The author was very creative on the tech available to characters and it was used elegantly that supported the story rather than the other way around. I will definitely continue this series. I’m a little bummed this is more of an anthology and it doesn’t seem we will see the characters again.

I’m absolutely hooked now

Looking forward to listening to or reading the rest of the Culture series books. Fantastic.

Great Book... Just not for audio

I really enjoyed this book when I first read it and all the books in the Culture series are great. With that said, the audio version was hard to keep up with for me. The details of the book and the places your imagination goes to need time to develop and the audio's pace got in the way of that for me.

Holds up decades later

New to the Culture books and was pleasantly surprised by how modern the story felt. A great performance by the narrator made it an easy listen