471 pages
English language
Published April 17, 2005
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.
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.
Content warning broad strokes spoilers
Starts as a delightful sci fi romp, giving tantalizing glimpses into the world, but it really doesn't stick the landing. Schlocky fun chaos gives way to an austere nihilism? I suppose it does tease a lot of culture stuff from the outside in an interesting way, but good god, the climax should have been at the damage game.
This is the second Banks I’ve read and I thought they were both terrific. Unlike some epic, galaxy-spanning space operas, this was pacey, smoothly written with great characters and loads of action and adventure.
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.
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.
Content warning Mild spoilers
I appreciate the basic concept of the book to show the effects of a big war on various situations, how people get dragged into it (or worse) against their will. It also shows the costs. The appendix that lists the facts about the war of which the book only covers the beginning is quite sobering. This was my second time reading it and it sure reads differently now in the light of a very real war raging nearby.
Banks introduces a lot of quite imaginative concepts in this book. The Culture, their Minds, huge ships with funny names, Orbitals, Megaships, Damage, a bunker system with huge trains and formidable weapons of various kinds. Almost all of the episodes in the book kould be their own book. The main problem is that the protagonist we keep following around isn't very sympathetic. On the contrary. Same goes for the rest of the pirates we spend most of the book with. So, it's difficult to be invested in what happens to them. This isn't helped by them dying in stupid ways almost immediately. That does get a bit repetitive after a while. The final showdown in the bunker system was very captivating the second time around, too. The way gender is depicted in this book isn't very progressive, weirdly enough. It's a solid, somewhat traditional sci-fi book.
I'm just really not that into you....
I didn't even get out of the first faeces-filled room. Tiresome.
I'm just really not that into you....
I didn't even get out of the first faeces-filled room. Tiresome.
This is a book about arrogance. The arrogance of going up against a culture (indeed, THE Culture) that can do anything, of going up against the certainty of faith, of going it alone, of reliance on technology or the rejection of it. I spent a while thinking about what this book is "about" after its unusual conclusion. I think it's ultimately about how very important it is to work together, to be together. A culture that destroys individualism so thoroughly that each person is ultimately disconnected from every other is as bad as a religious community that rejects common ground with other communities, which is itself as bad as a man who is driven only to accomplish his own ends. Every bad thing that happens to an individual is either the result of working alone--even with the best intentions--or of an uncaring, random universe inflicting itself on people left unprotected.
…This is a book about arrogance. The arrogance of going up against a culture (indeed, THE Culture) that can do anything, of going up against the certainty of faith, of going it alone, of reliance on technology or the rejection of it. I spent a while thinking about what this book is "about" after its unusual conclusion. I think it's ultimately about how very important it is to work together, to be together. A culture that destroys individualism so thoroughly that each person is ultimately disconnected from every other is as bad as a religious community that rejects common ground with other communities, which is itself as bad as a man who is driven only to accomplish his own ends. Every bad thing that happens to an individual is either the result of working alone--even with the best intentions--or of an uncaring, random universe inflicting itself on people left unprotected.
This is not a happy story. But it's not nihilistic either. Ultimately it's irritated, as if to say "come on, you have everything you need to do anything if you can just get it together!" Banks has chosen some fairly pulpy science fiction to convey this message. The tropes and images Banks uses in most of the story are not complex, literary science fiction. But there are moments, among which the most obvious is the brief aside when the Culture erases a structure from reality, when you glimpse the raw, profound power that is available to these people, power to shape reality, to do incredible things, if they'd get out of their own heads and stop having pulp fiction gunfights with three-legged aliens.
Of course, that leaves me wondering if Consider Phlebas is a talented writer's criticism of a genre that lets you explore literally anything under the stars but spends its time on gunfights with beasties. It seems like something Banks would do. Because, again, this is a book about arrogance, and maybe he's aware that his own might result in a difficult book that doesn't please people as much as it might.
Anyway, this is my second run through Banks' SF books, this time in order. I'm one story in and already sad that he's gone all over again.
This is a book about arrogance. The arrogance of going up against a culture (indeed, THE Culture) that can do anything, of going up against the certainty of faith, of going it alone, of reliance on technology or the rejection of it. I spent a while thinking about what this book is "about" after its unusual conclusion. I think it's ultimately about how very important it is to work together, to be together. A culture that destroys individualism so thoroughly that each person is ultimately disconnected from every other is as bad as a religious community that rejects common ground with other communities, which is itself as bad as a man who is driven only to accomplish his own ends. Every bad thing that happens to an individual is either the result of working alone--even with the best intentions--or of an uncaring, random universe inflicting itself on people left unprotected.
…This is a book about arrogance. The arrogance of going up against a culture (indeed, THE Culture) that can do anything, of going up against the certainty of faith, of going it alone, of reliance on technology or the rejection of it. I spent a while thinking about what this book is "about" after its unusual conclusion. I think it's ultimately about how very important it is to work together, to be together. A culture that destroys individualism so thoroughly that each person is ultimately disconnected from every other is as bad as a religious community that rejects common ground with other communities, which is itself as bad as a man who is driven only to accomplish his own ends. Every bad thing that happens to an individual is either the result of working alone--even with the best intentions--or of an uncaring, random universe inflicting itself on people left unprotected.
This is not a happy story. But it's not nihilistic either. Ultimately it's irritated, as if to say "come on, you have everything you need to do anything if you can just get it together!" Banks has chosen some fairly pulpy science fiction to convey this message. The tropes and images Banks uses in most of the story are not complex, literary science fiction. But there are moments, among which the most obvious is the brief aside when the Culture erases a structure from reality, when you glimpse the raw, profound power that is available to these people, power to shape reality, to do incredible things, if they'd get out of their own heads and stop having pulp fiction gunfights with three-legged aliens.
Of course, that leaves me wondering if Consider Phlebas is a talented writer's criticism of a genre that lets you explore literally anything under the stars but spends its time on gunfights with beasties. It seems like something Banks would do. Because, again, this is a book about arrogance, and maybe he's aware that his own might result in a difficult book that doesn't please people as much as it might.
Anyway, this is my second run through Banks' SF books, this time in order. I'm one story in and already sad that he's gone all over again.
I don't know why I was under the impression that this was a super important part of the sci fi cannon. It had some interesting imagery in it, but it was pretty silly action movie sequences for the large part. I am curious how the culture grows in the other books though, there were enough of these written that some in them must have stuck.
I don't know why I was under the impression that this was a super important part of the sci fi cannon. It had some interesting imagery in it, but it was pretty silly action movie sequences for the large part. I am curious how the culture grows in the other books though, there were enough of these written that some in them must have stuck.
Curieusement, si j'avais ce livre chez moi depuis au moins une dizaine d'années, je ne l'avais en fait jamais lu. Bizarre ...
La guerre idirane traverse toute l'oeuvre sur la Culture de Iain M Banks.
Et ce roman en illustre un aspect ... méconnu. Un mental de la culture se retrouve, à la suite d'un combat particulièrement périlleux, isolé au fond d'une planète servant de mémorial apocalyptiqe à une créature transcendée.
Et les membres de la culture, comme d'ailleurs leurs ennemis idirans, veulent le récupérer pour en extraire les informations utiles. La culture envoie un membre de Circonstances Spéciales, et les idirans envoient un métamorphe. C'est autour de ce métamorphe, ennemi personnel de la Culture dans son ensemble, que ce récit se concentre. On le voit donc voyager jusqu'à ce mémorial, tenter de récupérer le mental pour les idirans, ...
En chemin, il faut bien dire qu'il assiste à pas …
Curieusement, si j'avais ce livre chez moi depuis au moins une dizaine d'années, je ne l'avais en fait jamais lu. Bizarre ...
La guerre idirane traverse toute l'oeuvre sur la Culture de Iain M Banks.
Et ce roman en illustre un aspect ... méconnu. Un mental de la culture se retrouve, à la suite d'un combat particulièrement périlleux, isolé au fond d'une planète servant de mémorial apocalyptiqe à une créature transcendée.
Et les membres de la culture, comme d'ailleurs leurs ennemis idirans, veulent le récupérer pour en extraire les informations utiles. La culture envoie un membre de Circonstances Spéciales, et les idirans envoient un métamorphe. C'est autour de ce métamorphe, ennemi personnel de la Culture dans son ensemble, que ce récit se concentre. On le voit donc voyager jusqu'à ce mémorial, tenter de récupérer le mental pour les idirans, ...
En chemin, il faut bien dire qu'il assiste à pas mal de destructions : des vaisseaux idirans ou de la Culture, une Orbitale (vous savez, ces planètes reconstituées en forme d'immense roue), une secte apocalyptique dont il sera l'apocalypse, des trains, des bateaux géants, et bien entendu des gens. Beaucoup de personnages de ce roman meurent, il faut bien le reconnaître.
C'est sans doute ce qui lui vaut son titre original, "Consider Phlebas", tiré d'un poème anglais, qui est l'essence même d'une peinture de vanité traduite en poésie. Et, évidement, à son tour, ce roman est une vanité : il construit des choses toutes plus grandes, plus belles et plus spectaculaires les unes que les autres, pour les détruire toutes, de façon systématique. On peut le dire, c'est un roman parfaitement pessimiste dans son déroulement. Pessimiste également dans ses personnages : le métaporphe, par exemple, me semble agir comme tous ces "agents spéciaux" d'une façon parfaitement robotique et déshumanisée, même si il peut parfois faire preuve de compassion, ou questionner ses alliés sur leurs motivations.
Même le décor est totallement pessimiste : la planète sur laquelle se finit l'action est un mausolée à la gloire d'une race anéantie par la guerre, que les combattants vont visiter dans une guerre encore plus immense, mortelle, déprimante, et dangereuse que celle pour laquelle ce mausolée a été construit.
Y a-t-il quelque chose au-dela de ce pessimisme ? Non. Rien.
Et c'est ce qui fait la force, et j'ose même dire la beauté de cette oeuvre; elle n'a qu'un message : la vie est futile, seule la mort gagne. En ce sens, ça n'est évidement pas un roman à lire un soir de déprime.
En revanche, c'est, comme tous les romans de Banks, une oeuvre d'une profondeur, d'une force, absolument poignantes.
En ce sens, c'est une lecture très hautement recommandée.
En plus, comme il n'y a pas trop de mentaux, c'est sans doute une façon "douce" de pénétrer l'univers de la Culture.
Was enjoying the story & was wondering where the plot would go but felt a bit let down by the ending.
