Consider Phlebas is the first Iain M. Banks novel set in The Culture. It concerns the war between the Culture and the Idiran civilisation, an event whose repercussions affect all of the future novels in the series. Interestingly, the novel is mostly told from the perspective of Bora Horza Gobuchul, a "Changer", who sides with the Idirans and sees pretty much all of the Culture's signature aspects in a highly negative light. There's a big war going on in that novel, and various individuals and groups manage to influence its outcome. But even being able to do that doesn't ultimately change things very much. At the book's end, I have a section pointing this out by telling what happened after the war, which was an attempt to pose the question, 'What was it all for?' I guess this approach has to do with my reacting to the cliché of SF's 'lone protagonist.' You know, this idea that a single individual can determine the direction of entire civilizations. It's very, very hard for a lone person to do that. And it sets you thinking what difference, if any, it would have made if Jesus Christ, or Karl Marx or Charles Darwin had never been. We just don't know. [2] Literary significance and criticism [ edit ] It’s looking very bad for Horza indeed, when quite suddenly the wall of his cell is blasted away. His employers, the Idirans, have come to his rescue. Chapter 2: The Hand of God 137 So Consider Phlebas is about a military conflict between the Culture and the Idirans, a powerful and militant race that is united by its belief that its mission is to spread its religion to all other races, generally by force. The Culture is diametrically opposed to such behavior, so it reluctantly finds itself embroiled in a far-ranging galactic war that will eventually involve trillions of casualties and the destructions of thousands of planets, Orbitals, GSVs (General Systems Vehicles), Minds, etc. In the book, despite its length, we only get to see a tiny glimpse of this massive conflict via a few key characters and events.

Always a Bigger Fish: The Dra'Azon are a race of almost unfathomably powerful Energy Beings that care little for the physical galaxy besides preserving Ghost Planets as monuments to futility and destruction, including Schar's World. Neither the Culture or the Idirans want to risk pissing them off. Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain: Horza is the former in respect to the novel, but could be seen as the latter to the extent that the Culture itself is the protagonist of the series. 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. Horza can be cruel and ruthless, but many readers will find themselves rooting for him because he is an underdog. After all, he has taken on perhaps the most difficult assignment in the universe: outwitting a Culture Mind. As if that were not enough, Banks seems to almost enjoy twisting circumstance against Horza. In spite of his best-laid plans, things never seem to go as planned.Bora Horza Gobuchul is a Changer and an operative of the Idiran Empire. He was one of a party of Changers allowed on Schar's World, and for that reason is tasked by the Idirans with retrieving a Mind that had crashed to the planet. Horza is humanoid, but committed to the Idiran cause despite the fact that he does not believe in their god and does not agree with their harsh and aggressive expansion. He despises the Culture for its dependence on machines, and the fact that Culture's machines seemingly rule over the Culture humans, which he perceives to be spiritually empty and an evolutionary dead end.

Dave Langford reviewed Consider Phlebas for White Dwarf #90, and stated that "Banks pumps in enough high spirits to keep this rattling along to his slam-bang finale in the bowels of an ancient deep-shelter system whose nuclear-powered high-speed trains are used for... well, not commuting." [4] In other media [ edit ] Cancelled TV adaptation [ edit ] Gerald Jonas in The New York Times praised the sophistication of Banks' writing and said "he asks readers to hold in mind a great many pieces of a vast puzzle while waiting for a pattern to emerge". Jonas suggested the ending might appear to rely too much on a deus ex machina. [2] Now we meet our protagonist, Bora Horza Gobuchul. He is a spy, from a species known as Changers—humans who are able to alter their appearance to impersonate nearly anyone they like, which obviously makes them extremely valuable spies. They have other interesting characteristics as well: venomous teeth and nails, for instance.

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Ghost Planet: Schar's World, the planet where the lost Mind is hiding, is a world that once evolved sentient life with an advanced civilization until said life wiped itself out in the culmination of something like our Cold War. There is, however, one shred of mystery left at the very end… the rescued Mind, the McGuffin of the whole business, decides to call itself by Horza’s name… Now why should that be? Has the Changer somehow managed to transfer his infinitely adaptable personality… ? Athens and Sparta: A galactic-scale version with the Culture versus the Idirans. The former are a pleasure-seeking post-Singularity Utopia who love sleek shiny technology and are ruled by their machines, while the latter are a Proud Warrior Race of Scary Dogmatic Aliens who utilise Boring, but Practical technology and are convinced A.I. Is a Crapshoot. Given that the Culture are determined to 'enlighten' the less developed civilisations in the galaxy and bring them round to their way of thinking, while the Idirans are more concerned about converting everybody to their religion, war between the two was pretty much inevitable. A note on the post titles: they are drawn from the names of Culture ships that appear in those novels. Hopefully this is a joke that will not wear thin before the series is out.) Prologue Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The book ends with a brief summary of what happened to the surviving characters.

Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Jandraligeli proves himself to be quite possibly the sanest person on the CAT when he jumps ship on Vavatch to join up with a Free Company which actually has its shit together. He rises through the ranks to captain one of their ships, raking in enough of the company's profits to enjoy a hedonistic retirement, and finally meets his end by going Out with a Bang at a relatively ripe old age. Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1992. However, he announced in early 2007 that, after 25 years together, they had separated. He lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge. Perhaps the most interesting authorial decision in Consider Phlebas is that the protagonist, Bora Horza Gobuchul, is a Changer (a shape-shifter) who chooses to side with the Idirans, despite the fact that they are religious extremists who don’t mind exterminating other species, because Horza despises the Minds of the Culture, choosing the “side of life” instead. Although he freely admits that the Culture has never done him wrong, he categorically hates what he considers a decadent and arrogant civilization that considers its lifestyle and values superior to all others. This is useful as an introduction to the CULTURE, but not necessary. The plot is often exciting and there are some awesome set pieces which would make a great movie, but there are no characters to root for (they seem to be created as anti-heroes) and the plot, which feels incohesive, takes much too long to accomplish. There are also fewer of the “big ideas” I’ve come to expect from Banks. I would love to see this condensed and produced as a movie.Shapeshifter Identity Crisis: Horza (as a shapeshifter) has a literal invocation of this trope. He doesn't lose control of his shifting, but several of the dream sequences he experiences hint that he may not actually be who he thinks he is. Sympathetic P.O.V.: Horza hates the Culture and, for example, while the later novels draw humor from the humorous/macabre names the Culture gives to ships, he's disgusted by this apparent display of the Culture's cavalier attitude towards something as grim as interstellar warfare.

Death World: An unseen example is the Idiran homeworld, which has caused them to evolve into badass warriors. Hero Antagonist: Balveda, a secret agent for the Culture, which even Horza is forced to admit he hates more for what they represent than their actions. STUART STAROSTA, on our staff from March 2015 to November 2018, is a lifelong SFF reader who makes his living reviewing English translations of Japanese equity research. Despite growing up in beautiful Hawaii, he spent most of his time reading as many SFF books as possible. After getting an MA in Japanese-English translation in Monterey, CA, he lived in Tokyo, Japan for about 15 years before moving to London in 2017 with his wife, daughter, and dog named Lani. Stuart's reading goal is to read as many classic SF novels and Hugo/Nebula winners as possible, David Pringle's 100 Best SF and 100 Best Fantasy Novels, along with newer books & series that are too highly-praised to be ignored. 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. Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Played straight with the Idirans, at least until the appendices reveals this as an inversion. The Culture is willing to fight to the last against a civilization that is no physical threat to them based on ideology alone, while the Idirans went to war thanks to a runaway military-industrial complex, and want to cut the war short with a political settlement. So who are the real dogmatics?

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Horza dies soon after Balveda gets him to the surface and the Mind is returned to the Culture. In an epilogue, the Mind becomes a starship, and reveals its name to be Bora Horza Gobuchul. Banks always uses the names of his sapient spaceships – chosen by the Minds themselves – as ironic commentary, and this novel contains some of his best, such as the Ethics Gradient, the Not Invented Here, the Frank Exchange of Views, and the Zero Gravitas. Excession is the favourite of many Culture fans, though Look to Windward (hello again, TS Eliot) and the extremely dark and brilliant Use of Weapons are also deservedly revered. I'm a Humanitarian: During a very nasty side arc when Horza is trapped on a deserted island on the Vavatch Orbital alongside a cannibalistic apocalypse cult. He has to figure out how to talk his way out of being eaten and reach an escape shuttle the Culture left on the island, before a Culture ship is scheduled to destroy the Orbital. Horza has to lose the meat on several fingers before he can escape the cultists. As one otherwise hardened reviewer put it, "I can't believe this is happening".