Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Bedenke Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

6 reviews

gab1one's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Liked it better on my second read, especially the second half

on the planet of the dead

where the tempo slows down a bit. It's quite grim at times, at others funny.
This book is a subversion of the Space Opera genre, by turning everything to 11 and having the main character be unlikeable, selfish, and unimportant. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Cannibalism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug abuse, Suicide, Blood, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Sexual content

gilgalad's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Cannibalism

el_pato_gigante's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Xenophobia, and Excrement

Minor: Alcoholism, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infertility, Sexual content, Vomit, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

jjjreads's review against another edition

One of the most boring books I've ever read. A solid 90% of the portion I read did not need to be in the book. It was totally irrelevant. Whole chapters should have been a single sentence, if that. The worldbuilding is pretty cool, but the few interesting facts are so buried in a morass of the useless, petty goings-on of the unlikeable main character you almost don't notice them, and even if you do the reeking misogyny negates them anyway.

Again: the main character was boring an unlikeable (by which I do not mean he was a bad person - I mean, he was, but that's not why he was unlikeable. It'd be more accurate to say it was impossible to think of him as a real person, and even if you managed it was impossible to care about him), the events occurring on any given page do not constitute a plot, there are precious few if any bits and pieces that almost could have made up for it, and the sheer overwhelming grossness of a few (again, totally irrelevant) scenes tipped the scale into making this totally unreadable.

I kept reading and reading, thinking that surely it'd get better eventually, surely after this scene something relevant or interesting or vaguely pertaining to the plot would happen, and I was continuously wrong. Oh, and to top it all off, the two characters who have no personality beyond not speaking the language (it's creepy how silenced they are) and being lesbians are

killed off for literally no reason. That is, one of them dies, so the other one goes and immediately gets herself killed on purpose.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Kidnapping

Minor: Drug use

narzibenoucdel's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Excrement, Vomit, and Murder

charleyroxy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny sad tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, and Cannibalism