Apatt's Reviews > Consider Phlebas

“You’re ruled by your machines. You’re an evolutionary dead end. The trouble is that to take your mind off it you try to drag everybody else down there with you.”

Back to the beginning. Consider Phlebas is the first book of the Culture series (ten volumes in total, I believe), one of the most beloved sci-fi book series ever, written by the late great Iain M. Banks, feel free to confuse him with the equally late and great Iain Banks, who is indeed the same writer but is described as a “literary novelist” and wrote mainstream non-sci-fi books. It is not surprising then that this series has a more literary, at times experimental, prose style than most sci-fi books, and is treasured by sci-fi connoisseurs.

In a nutshell, the Culture series is an epic space opera featuring a post-scarcity galaxy spanning group-civilization called “The Culture”, ostensibly owned by humans but actually run by super AI entities called The Minds. The humans live hedonistic carefree lives, everything they can possibly want is catered for by the AIs, the Minds, the drones (smaller AIs) and other high-tech devices. Banks avoids using the words computers and robots as the Minds and the drones are hyper-advanced sentient machines with personalities, they are living non-biological entities. The Culture series are all standalone books set in this universe, each volume tells a story concerning the humans and the machines of this powerful empire.

Consider Phlebas is the story of protagonist Bora Horza Gobuchul, a Changer, a transhuman with an ability to gradually morph into other humans. “Horza” hates the Culture with a passion and has sided with the Idirans, an alien race at war with the Culture, a war of ideology. The Idirans think the Culture is too influential in the galaxy and too uppity with their mission to “improve the lives of those in less-advanced societies”, in direct opposition to the Idirans’ expansionist policy of conquering such societies through military might.

An Idiran

The main story arc concerns a Mind which crash-landed on a remote planet, the Culture and the Idirans are racing to retrieve/capture this Mind as it possesses a wealth of information that can be used against the Culture. Horza is employed by the Idirans for this mission and the narrative depicts his long, complicated and very dangerous mission involving an encounter with a race of cannibals, participating in a bizarre high-tech computer game, taking over a mercenary ship by taking over the captain’s identity, and the eventual confrontation with the Culture and his less than trustworthy employer, the Idirans.

Consider Phlebas is a very entertaining, wild, and sometimes thrilling read. It is, however, a sprawling adventure with a rather episodic feel to most of the chapters. I do find some of the chapters to be a little longer than they need to be; I wish it was a tighter narrative. Having said that, I do not recall any actual dull moments, just that some scenes are less compelling than others. Characterization is definitely one of Bank’s strengths. This book features a complex, interesting, badass and, at times, hilarious characters. Horza is something of an anti-hero who does some reprehensible things throughout the narrative, but he also has his moments of heroism. Culture agent Perosteck Balveda is a very tenacious character with a strong sense of morality, but best of all is the sarcastic longsuffering drone Unaha-Closp who outshines all the biological characters for me.

Unaha-Closp by verox11

Is Consider Phlebas the best Culture book, or the best one to start with? I would say no to both. The Player of Games is my favorite Culture book (so far, I have a few more to read), it is shorter, tighter, quite riveting and is generally wonderful; better still, you do not need to have read any other Culture novels to follow it. However, in and of itself, if what I wrote so longwindedly about this book so far seems enticing to you then yes, I can confirm it is a good and worthwhile read. The series itself I can certainly recommend as something unique that you should not do without.



Notes:
• If you want to read some background information about the Culture series, read Banks’ own guide: A Few Notes on the Culture. You can, of course, just dive into any one of the books.

• I was watching Star Trek: Discovery last night and it occurred to me that the Culture is similar to Trek’s Federation in some ways. Both include advanced utopian human civilizations, and respected by alien races. Though The Culture appears to be primarily owned by humans and the most powerful civilization in the known galaxy.

Quotes:

“What do you want? A robot?” Its voice sneered. “I don’t have an Off button on my reasoning functions; I can’t choose not to have free will. I could quite easily swear to obey all orders regardless of the consequences; I could vow to sacrifice my life for you if you asked me to; but I’d be lying, so that I could live.”

“But the Culture, that seemingly disunited, anarchic, hedonistic, decadent mélange of more or less human species, forever hiving off or absorbing different groups of people, had fought for almost four years without showing any sign of giving up or even coming to a compromise.”

(On the game, “Damage”) “It’s been called the most decadent game in history. About all you can say in the game’s defense is that it, rather than reality, occupies the warped minds of some of the galaxy’s more twisted people; gods know what they would get up to if it wasn’t there.”

“They had their communist Utopia. They were soft and pampered and indulged, and the Contact section’s evangelical materialism provided their conscience-salving good works.”

“Individuality, the thing which most humans held more precious than anything else about themselves, was somehow cheapened by the ease with which a Changer could ignore it as a limitation and use it as a disguise.”

(On the Minds) “They were so intelligent that no human was capable of understanding just how smart they were (and the machines themselves were incapable of describing it to such a limited form of life).”