I hated it. Every. Single. Character. Died. Their deaths were pointless. This entire book was pointless. I personally believe that after banks finished writing this dumpster fire he thought ‘how can I make this even more depressing?’ before adding that little section right before the epilogue that describes how all the characters who weren’t killed off ended up dying anyways (except for that robot guy). In fact, the epilogue and the first few pages of the chapter where the damage game happens are the only parts of this book I don’t loathe. I think the world would be a better place if Consider Phlebas wasn’t published. I’m not reading any of the other culture books.
by IPlayPrisonArchitect
19 Comments
Use the spoiler tag for fuckssake.
I liked it.
This was only barely an introduction to the culture. The other novels are actually set inside of it. Also I thought the ending was touching.
It took me 3 tries to finish Consider Phlebas and I hated it, too.
Player of games was ok.
Use of Weapons had me glued to the goddamn page and staring at the ceiling with my mind blown for about 20 minutes once I finished it.
My Lesson: Loving the Culture takes time.
Look to Windward is fantastic
I hated it too. A lot. Player of Games is great, if still depressing. Use of Weapons was pretty good but I guessed the twist early enough that I didn’t get the full impact of the reveal. Consider Phlebas is the worst Culture novel, but Banks does like writing depressing ass shit and also gross shit so keep that in mind if you consider reading more.
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Loved that book. He’s said one of his motivations in writing it was to write about how small individuals are in war and that they don’t do much impact, in contrast to your cliche action hero wins the war stories. So the pointless death was the point. But also spoiler tags.
*”War is hell.”*
Genuinely, I don’t think I’ve ever read a single one of these posts people throw up on how much they hated a book and not thought “The problem here is the reader, not the book.” >!You can have a book where it’s all pointless and everyone dies, because sometimes the fact that it was all pointless was the point.!<
I like Banks’ books mostly for the description of how the Culture works, and the tension over whether it is a utopia or not. For example, here we get the discussion of the Culture deciding to >!blow up their own orbital!< and whether this was out of character for them.
The ending was interesting because the protagonist sided with the Idirans for philosophical reasons, >!and when he comes face-to-face with them they don’t give a shit about him. It’s seeing the clash between philosophy and brute-force reality play out that’s interesting.!<
Use of Weapons is awesome. I would read that.
The thing about Banks’s science fiction is that his drones (and aliens) are far more interesting than his human characters. I think that this was entirely deliberate on Banks’s part. I loved Chamlis Amalkney and Mawrhin Skell. I can’t even recall the names of the human characters. Try _Inversions_. There aren’t any drones to speak of (at least, they don’t get to say anything), and you need to work out what the two main characters are up to. Also, try _Feersum Endjinn_. This is an absolute hoot, and I would rate it as his very best sci-fi book. The ending is utterly satisfying, right up to the last sentence.
> I think the world would be a better place if Consider Phlebas wasn’t published.
I think if we’re heading into a world where we utilise AI—ChatGPT and the like—at the very least we could be using such technology to instantly scrub from existence all ‘reviews’ of books that say something as mind-crushingly daft and pompously self-important as this.
I loved it. I’ve read it a couple of times. After the first reading it was my favourite sci-fi book ever. It remained my favourite until I read the second Culture book a couple of years later.
Oh, by the way, it’s a tragedy.
>Their deaths were pointless.
Welcome to war.
Yeah I would advise you don’t read all of his other amazing books if you feel this way.
Thanks for the spoilers, i was planning on reading this one.
Consider Phlebas is widely considered an immature, early career work and one of Banks’ worst. Many people recommend skipping it entirely when reading Culture. I did it anyway when going through, and found it bad, but not shockingly so like you did.
The jump up in subsequent quality is so immense it’s hard to explain. Give Player of Games or Use of Weapons a shot – if you don’t like those, you can give up on Culture, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you stop after the widely panned early first flop.
>!I didn’t hate it as much as you, at least not enough to wish it had never been published, but I do want to say that in a universe where there are giant manufactured planetoids with populations in the billions, the inhabitants made up of a diverse set of humanoid aliens (some covered in fur, some purple, etc) who are generally unable to interbreed without special medical intervention, and many references to technology that allows these humanoids to change appearance and even sex, the idea that they would have gender-segregated restrooms is so absurd that I laughed out loud.!<
Edit: updated to put this in a spoiler tag even though it’s not *really* a spoiler.
I didn’t finish it. The entire book (up until I DNF’ed) was a blur. it was like reading some kafka fever dream. no idea what was going on nor did i care. only thing i remember was a huge fat guy on the beach being worshipped. but i always read such great reviews about it, and then i get paranoid i missed something really obvious?