Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
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Book Reviews of Consider Phlebas
Book Review: Could Have Been Better
Summary: 3 Stars
Consider Phlebas is a tough one to review. On one hand I love Banks' voice, his big ideas and up until the end this book moves at a good clip. On the other hand I found the plotting to be random and a bit contrived. I'll weigh the pros and cons in a second -
There is a war of galactic scale going on between the mega-utopian Culture and the super-religious Idiran. A sentient mechanical device called a Mind has taken refuge on a planet called Schar's World after an Idiran/Culture conflict. Horza, a mercenary who can change his physical appearance (a Changer) is employed by the Idiran to retrieve the Mind before the Culture snag it back for themselves. This isn't so easy, soon Horza finds himself unlucky as he goes from one screwed up situation to the next.
There's a lot to like here. The scope of the war is massive, I found Horza to be mostly likeable (though not quite as developed as he could have been). Iain does a great job painting the scenes. I love some of the ideas he implemented, even if some of them aren't his own.
On the flip-side I have substantial gripes. First, this novel is little more than a few massive digressions surrounded by the thin underlying plot. The crazy adventures Horza finds himself on have almost nothing to do with the underlying story. The version of this book I have is 468 pages long and I bet only 130 pages are dedicated to the underlying plot. Unfortunately it turns out that the few pages that are dedicated to the plot just aren't all that good.
I found the ending to be quite lacking. I'm not going to spoil it here, but Banks attempts to pull off an emotional ending and really it just falls flat. Banks will use contrived plot devices to attempt a whiz-bang ending (a convenient pregnancy to try and pull at emotions later on, for instance) but really it just doesn't work here, there's just not enough going as far as character development, or emotional investment to pull an ending like this off and make it memorable. Unfortunately when we finally get to the real meat at the end of this novel is when the book slogs a bit. In the end the book spins off into multiple threads showing the POV of the conflict from all angles, which is great, *but* he spends too much time trying to create tension. Unfortunately the 130 (or so) pages could have been whittled down to 50 or less without much loss.
So, Consider Phlebas isn't exactly a dud. The trademark Banks prose is there, the big ideas are there, we get a good dose of Culture history and such, but in the end (literally) it falls a bit flat. Check it out if you already love Banks, if you have never read a Culture book then start with Player of Games and come back to this one later on.
Book Review: Some 4 stars bits, but a 2-star ending (huge spoilers!)
Summary: 3 Stars
Consider Phlebas had some 4 star moments, for sure, but the ending was utterly 2 star, and that's being generous. I've read that it was an early book that Banks rewrote, and I believe it. I think he probably tweaked the actual writing a lot, but left the basic plot. And that's a problem: the ending felt very college writing class. I mean, come on. If you want to write a story whose whole point is that war is bigger than any individual, and that no one can really change the course of it, fine. But 500 pages of "and then this happened" space opera that suddenly and abruptly ends with what amounts to "and then then they all died, pointlessly" is just facile, and bad writing, too. I get what he was trying to do, and it didn't work for me. I had the same feeling of letdown at the end of The Business actually: good writing, but the ending didn't live up to what preceded it.
The book had other problems, too. The whole Fal N'Geestra intercut story line never really went anywhere, and then just petered out annoyingly. Sad, considering that it seemed like the most interesting storyline. I also didn't like his third person inconsistent POV. We mostly know only the thoughts of the two main characters, Bora and Fal, but, very occasionally, and in the middle of segments that are told with insight into Bora's POV, we suddenly see the thoughts of someone else whose thoughts we were never privy to before, and never will be again. That's not great writing, I don't think. That said, I'm probably going to keep reading his books. The good parts really are good, and I'm hoping that his later books cure the problems I had with this one...
Book Review: Well, I Finished It
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a book about a motley collection of individuals pursuing their various interests against the backdrop of a vast galaxy-wide war. The protagonist is a traitor to his species for idealogical reasons which aren't very compelling when he spells them out. The two sides in the war are driven by one side's desire to maintain a decadent, hedonistic lifestyle and the other side's religious fanaticism. I guess that's supposed to speak to "what's happening now," but I found the author's charcterization of both sides as pretty simplistic.
The protagonist makes some pretty ill-considered decisions such as taking two dangerous adversaries, along on his trek, when we already know he has no qualms about killing anyone who gets in his way. One of them he spares so that he can report him to his superiors once this is all over (really???) and the other because they seem to have some respect for each other as worthy adversaries, or some such nonsense. And enemies who seem to be dead come back to life long enough to attack the protagonist one last time.
I found it difficult to finish the book, and only managed to because I found myself with nothing else to do at the time. Still it took me quite a while. the author introduces some interesting ideas, but doesn't flesh them out much, perhaps in an effort to get you read more of the series. I'm not saying the book is bad, just that it didn't really engage me. Obvously, other reviewers liked it a lot, so it's probably just a matter of personal taste.
Book Review: To Make A Short Story Long
Summary: 3 Stars
I read and enjoyed Use of Weapons a few months ago, so I thought I'd start The Culture series from the beginning. I like long reads, but I was taken aback by how much Banks learned about storytelling between Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons. Both are long, but Use of Weapons is a real long story while Consider Phlebas is a kind of space opera shaggy dog story--a short story that goes on interminably. It bored the pants off me, though not enough to make me stop reading it. NONE of the characters are memorable, and the storyline is old hat. Nevertheless, the Iridans are interesting, and the set-up of The Culture is useful if I'm going to forge ahead in the hope I'll find another entry in the series to match Use of Weapons in mood and intellect. I've already decided not to read all the entries, and not in order. I'll read descriptions and reviews to try to figure out which Culture novel to read next. There doesn't seem to be any order to them, and I'm already on to the possibility that Banks's growth as a writer weight my choices toward the latter entries.
Eric Hammel
Author of Love and Grace
Book Review: I'm not used to hard SF, so...
Summary: 3 Stars
...I'm not sure how valid my points are about the sf in this book, but from a layperson's perspective, I found them fascinating. The gargantuan scope of Banks's universe is gripping and vast, where the scale of everything from an idea to a galaxy is handled with masterful control. Although some concepts are a bit dated, for the most part even the wildest ideas are exhilarating in the truest sense of 'space opera.'
What doesn't work as well is the actual story, or, rather, the pseudo-parallel stories of Horza and his gang and the strange female character Fal 'Ngeestra who seems to be guiding and/or controlling Horza's fate. Horza's mission, tied up in a brutal war between an alien species and 'the Culture,' or, evolved mankind, is simple enough, but the course of action he takes (or is forced to take) is meandering at best. The story is the most fun when Banks describes some impossible space scenario, wrought with gunfire and fighting; it loses considerable steam when things get metaphysical or slow down thanks to somewhat boring plot elements.