Consider Phlebas
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4.1 • 603 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.
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.
The Culture Series
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The first novel in Iain M. Banks' Culture series is a potboiler of intergalactic intrigue. Consider Phlebas opens near the start of a far-ranging war between two humanoid factions: the religious, technology-disdaining Iridans and The Culture, who are morally ambiguous and technology-dependent. Tasked with capturing a Culture intelligence agent, shape-shifting Iridan Bora Horza Gobuchul zips from one tense misadventure to another. Writing with great authority and imagination—and with a scope reminiscent of the sprawl of William Gibson's Neuromancer—Phlebas plunges readers into a thrillingly dark new universe.
Customer Reviews
The last page always makes me cry
Reread it three times. Always tear up at the end. The best Culture novel to read, and the first.
Surprisingly good!
Been on a sci fi kick.
But many books are so full of pretentious lumbering prose and slow time murdering pages.
Was not expecting this book to be so direct, clear, yet evocative, action packed and fun. Can’t believe my luck that this isn’t even his best book and I have so many more to go. Very very puzzled about the bad reviews I’ve seen but ok…to each their own.
Cheers Mr Banks. Freaking love your stuff.
Meh
Forced & clumsy drama. House of pain style of writing (jump around)