Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Bedenke Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

10 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. 

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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

itsphoenix's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Cannibalism, Murder, and War

prosenheim's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Cannibalism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Gore, Gun violence, Sexism, Suicide, Excrement, Vomit, Religious bigotry, and War

Minor: Drug use and Pregnancy

fahyhallowell's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Torture, Cannibalism, Murder, and War

Moderate: Genocide, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Sexual content

shanekate's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Xenophobia, and War

Minor: Drug use and Abortion

Very graphic.

nnia's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

You do not have to start the Culture series with this book. Nothing will be lost starting elsewhere. The author started here or with what is now considered the 4th book, The State of Art, shorter drafts of the first three books.

This is Space Opera. This is violent. This is a long rambling science fiction novel. This was very new territory when it was written. If you are impatient with an interrogative bent this is probably not the book to start with and maybe not the series for you. 
Banks is giving Space Opera, Banks is giving atmosphere, Banks is giving adventure, Banks is giving nuance. In spades.
Also plowing new ground. This is a new genre/sub genre, AI. AI/humanoid symbiosis.

This is the first book written in the culture series and is written from an outsider’s perspective, that of Horza, a spy from a race of shapeshifters, don’t consider this a spoiler as it’s in the first chapter where you meet the main character, hired by the Iridians to move against the Culture. 
I feel as though the author Ian M. Banks is sneaking up on the main subject matter of the series, that of a prodigiously long lived, very successful (certainly by 21st century humans POV) integrated AI/humanoid society/symbiosis of, the Culture. Horza is an interesting, resourceful, intelligent and sensitive person, as sensitive as he can be as a hired gun, aware of and encountering many instances of flaws in different societies

and yet still is prejudiced and bigoted towards the computer intelligences of the Culture. I feel that this attitude is one that is too much permitted, held and holding back our current society. There is a precedent within the structure of the books among the small core team of players that is begun here and repeated in other Culture books demonstrating the symbiotic relationship between the AI and biological lifeforms, humanoids particularly, and no, AI do not render humans obsolete. Read between the lines humans for some keen observations on what is cool and unique about talking, human, monkey creatures.

 

As someone who works in the AI field I enjoy these books enormously. 
As I said before this is the first book written and readers will learn more about the Culture in subsequent novels. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Car accident, and Colonisation

Moderate: Confinement, Gun violence, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Murder, Colonisation, and War

Minor: Gore and Sexual content

drkshadow's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Eating disorder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Excrement, Vomit, Cannibalism, and Murder

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.

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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

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Excrement, Vomit, and Murder

azurelunatic's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? No

2.0

Did not care for this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Fatphobia, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Cannibalism, and Murder