Consider Phlebas by: Iain M. Banks

 

While I attempt to write in the third person, I feel like for this review including some first person since this was a book that I had recommended by multiple people when requesting books to take a look at.  As far as I am aware, Iain M. Banks while prolific is no as well known here in the United States, most likely because of the USA’s tendency to ignore many writers who don’t push their way into the pop culture.  While Consider Phlebas is not his first novel, it is the first installment in his long running, science fiction series exploring the idea of the Culture.  The Culture is an intergalactic society that seems to have an almost utopic outlook which is honestly a fascinating idea that still intrigues me after reading this novel.  Banks is clearly talented at worldbuilding, but throughout Consider Phlebas there isn’t enough to really explore what the Culture is, possibly because this first novel is told from an outsider’s perspective from the Culture.  The perspective of this book is from an enemy agent while the Culture is at war with the Idrians and Banks to his credit goes into how this war came about as well as worldbuilding for the setting.

 

Consider Phlebas takes its title from “The Waste Lands” by T.S. Elliot which should give you insight into the tone Banks is going for but it’s a novel that I honestly struggled with for its first half.  There are some incredibly evocative opening scenes of torturing someone for information in a very gruesome detail, but after about 30 pages Banks slows down to an almost glacial pace until just over the halfway point of the novel where it picks up and feels like Banks realizes what kind of novel he is writing.  The ending of the book in particular somehow manages to pull something great, reflecting on the nature of war and an almost nihilistic outlook on the influence one person can have.  This nihilism is tempered with quite a few instances of amazingly wry, British humor that seems tailor made to work for my particular tastes.  The main character of Horza suddenly becomes fascinating to follow when he’s actually put into a high pressure situation, and the plot is allowed to move along.  There is some rather regressive portrayals of sex which I think Banks was attempting to do as a genuinely sex positive thing, but in retrospect it's very “men writing women.”  This is the one thing that brings the back half of the book down.

 

Overall, Consider Phlebas is not bad enough for me to completely write off the Culture as a setting nor is it enough for me to write Bnaks off as a writer, however, I do think that it may not really work as an introduction to the series or Banks despite being the first book in the series.  The first half just dragged itself out far too much and while the second half massively improved things and nearly pulled something good out of the depths there still isn’t enough exploration plus some supplementary material before the epilogue that didn’t need to be there as it kind of spells out the themes of the book which wasn’t subtle to begin with.  5/10.