Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
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Book Reviews of Consider Phlebas
Book Review: Is that it? Seriously?
Summary: 2 Stars
As I approached the end of "Consider Phlebas," I was prepared to give it three stars - an okay, occasionally enjoyable, and relatively easy read. But when I finally finished the book, I couldn't believe my brain. So yes, there are spoilers within.
So this is the basic story: Two large spacefaring cultures - the human "Culture" and the non-human "Idirans" - are waging war. It's very unclear why they are fighting. The protagonist, Horza, thinks that the Culture is a decadent society which has given itself over to domination by machines. The fact is, though, we've seen plenty of sci-fi authors describe what machine-dominated societies look like... and unless we're supposed to regard Horza as a wildly misinformed fanatic (and I don't think we are), the Culture looks nothing like that. Rather, it's just some rich civilization that sometimes likes to use robot assistants and relies on a few powerful robot brains for occasional advice. Big deal, but Banks seems to think it should be regarded as ooga-booga-scary-artificial-intelligence business.
Given how non-threatening the Culture seems, Horza's loyalty to the Idirans barely makes sense, but it is what it is. Anyhow, pursuant to that loyalty, Horza goes off on a mission to recover some fancy-dancy Culture AI called a "Mind." Why this Mind is such a big deal is never really explained.
In any event, Horza gets assigned this task early on. Most of the book is a series of incredibly long detours that do nothing to advance the plot but just showcase Horza getting into heaps of trouble. He falls in with a sorry lot of pirates and spends hundreds of pages getting shot at and nearly eaten (!) until he can finally commandeer their ship and head toward his quarry.
Basically, the entire book until this point is just "The Wacky Adventures of Horza Gobuchul." And yet the denoument is really what makes this book such a masterwork of fail. Horza at long last chases down this uber-important Mind and then... he dies. That's it. Nothing else happens.
Maybe this book is supposed to be some sort of meditation on the futility of war. If so, it was terribly weak. Anyhow, who knows what Banks meant. The bottom line is that the entire book is a huge chase for a Maguffin that ends with a total whimper.
If you're looking to be disappointed with a meaningless story and deeply unfulfilling conclusion, then this book is for you!
(P.S. Why two stars and not one? I reserve one-star ratings for hateful works. This book was terrible, but not in any way hateful.)
Book Review: A universe of cliches
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this book based on the glowing reviews found on Amazon. I'll admit it's not entirely unreadable and for enthusiasts of military scifi, there are some things to like here (the cover art, for example, is awesome). However, taken as a whole this novel was far more irritating than engrossing.
The small annoyances: the back cover and the prologue inform us that the central conflict of this novel will be two interstellar nations racing to recover a powerful AI computer that's stranded on an off-limits planet. In the second chapter, the main character learns this as well, and the novel is set up. Promising, eh? Three pages later, our protagonist is thrown completely off the trail and spends an eternity doing things unrelated to the central plot. Meanwhile, the dialogue is awkward and every page has at least one poorly constructed sentence.
The real annoyances, however, are the clichés. Chapter 1 intends to introduce us to the main character in a dramatic prison rescue... straight out of any spy, romance, scifi or western novel you may have read. The primary aliens are giant monsters (who would have guessed that?), with 3-legs instead of two. They're also really loud. In chapter 2, we see the primary character make an escape from a starship under attack that's suspiciously similar to the opening scene of Star Wars episode IV. In Chapter 3, our main character is in a fight to the death to join a crew of pirates. Seriously, points for good taste apply, but I'd still prefer that you didn't rip off Alexandre Dumas and `The Count of Monte Cristo." The Captain of the pirates is a bit of a rogue who won his ship in a game of chance. The ship itself is a beaten down frigate, but the Captain swears that it's the fastest ship in this part of the galaxy. Some of his crewmates are basically humanoid, but covered in light brown fur. Honestly. Continuing the Star Wars motif, we soon see some ground combat (involving laser weapons) in a Temple on a planet looking suspiciously like Yavin IV. I could go on, but you get the point.
It's not entirely awful, and if you're a true scifi junkie you'll get your money's worth. For the non-enthusiasts who just want a decent story with some cool space battles, I strongly recommend Scott Westerfeld's "Succession" novels.
Book Review: Consider taking a science class (and a writing class)
Summary: 2 Stars
If you are in a spaceship that is careening toward a wall, and you fire a laser that blows the wall open, will you simply sail on through as if the wall had never been there? No. You will be kicked back by the recoil, because of Newton's Third Law.
If computer minds manage to find a human who has outpredicted the computer minds on X number of occasions, do those Minds have any good reason to believe that that individual will outpredict them on subsequent occasions? Only if the sample is large. The existence of humans who can outpredict supercomputers is an interesting thought, but is not implied by probability theory.
If you are under a hovercraft that weighs many, many tons and is supported by a downdraft of air, the pressure on you will be approximately the same as if the hovercraft were lying on top of you. You will die.
These are but a few example of the bad science in this book.
The bad plot, however, is inexcusable. The idea that Horza, who has received extensive military training, would keep alive two exceedingly dangerous hostile prisoners, when his own team consists of three relative strangers of dubious training and effectiveness, is laughable.
The overall story is also boring and pointless. There is no overarching significance to Horza's quest. Horza's motivations are only briefly sketched; the motivations of the other characters receive even less attention. There is nearly no substantive interaction between the characters, as the book proceeds from action scene to action scene.
This book is "sound and fury, signifying nothing." I won't say it's "a tale told by an idiot," but I hope Mr. Banks' writing skills have improved since this early effort.
Book Review: Big ideas, fun beginning, horrible 2nd half
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this book because I was intrigued by "Matter" and wanted to get in on the storyline before it, so I bought this instead. I was excited by the ideas: Minds, sentient AIs that are highly autonomous and the real leaders of the human empire, and huge space constructs: Rings, like in Niven's "Ringworld," and spheres that can encompass a sun and use 100% of the solar energy, among other things.
Unfortunately, after an exciting beginning and a strong entry into the plot, the book seems to completely lose direction and gets mired in small side-adventures that only occasionally flesh out the universe or add anything. The main character and his opponent from the other side of the battle have to work together for much of the end of the book, and the woman's actions make no sense, and her motivations are completely opaque. A hardened spy and assassin who cries and gets depressed while they search endlessly through boring tunnels? Give me a break!
I came very close to skipping whole chapters later in the book, when the characters do nothing at all except whine at each other for dozens of pages.
Other books do a better job of exploring the ideas presented here, without the frequent "dead air" chapters.
Book Review: Not that great
Summary: 2 Stars
This book is all over the place, and unnecessarily long. It's like each chapter tries to stand on its own with no connection to the story overall. I felt like I was reading a bad Hollywood script that had to have a bunch of unncessary action to justify the length or budget of the thing. Dialog is boring (a very common problem with science fiction writers), and the ending a giant anti-climatic let-down.
The only SF writers I have read (so far) that do not suffer from these problems are Arthur C. Clark and Alastair Reynolds (his first books anyway), but I've read all their books and keep hunting for someone to take the next spot as my favorite.
This was my first Iain Banks book and probably the last. I only give authors one chance to impress. Maybe Iain's other books are better but it's too late. Sorry.