A review by stephilica
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
3.0
I have a love-hate relationship with this book. I love a great deal of it, but the things I hate are so pervasive as well.
The galaxy is amazingly built. The cultures (and the Culture, ha!) are beautifully examined, though there are some asides that I really didn’t want to know about… Social and religious conflicts, technological innovation, and scientific wonders pervade. It’s the main reason I kept reading; every time I considered putting the book down, Banks amazed with another novel idea. While some of the long diatribes about philosophy felt gratuitous, the examination of different cultures’ points of view showed the strength of the world building; Banks went beyond superficial aesthetics and created genuine alien cultures.
The prose too can be gorgeous. Take this:
Against a wall of pure white towering higher than the Olmedreca’s tallest spire, the Megaship was throwing itself to destruction in a froth of debris and ice. It was like the biggest wave in the universe, rendered in scrap metal, sculpted in grinding junk; and beyond and about it, over and through, cascades of flashing, glittering ice and snow swept down in great snow veils from the cliff of frozen water beyond.
Or even this:
The mountain on the island grew larger very slowly. He felt as though he was building it, as though the effort required to make it appear larger in his sight was the same as if he was toiling to construct that peak; heap it up rock by rock, with his own hands...
While beautiful in places, though, it’s also obfuscating. The prologue itself was difficult to get through and is a rather accurate sample of the rest of the novel. Various terms are thrown out and readers are expected to piece meanings together, or infer from context; while I actually enjoy such academic exercises while reading, there were times that it made understanding what’s going on nearly impossible. Furthermore, there are places where the prose is so thick and detailed that it detracts from the action of the moment, and others when I really wanted more explanation and received bare-bones.
There are also moments of complete info-dump. There’s pages and pages on the initial crew of the CAT that throws a few personality traits and their appearances at me, and then I’m expected to care for these characters as they show little to any of the listed traits before fading out of the narrative. It didn’t work. I had to keep flipping back to remind myself who half the crew members even were. Another example was the opening of a chapter that takes place during a game of Damage, which is actually a very interesting idea, and perhaps one of my favorite parts of the novel. The chapter opens, however, with a reporter waxing lyrical about the game… while we still have no idea what it is, just that it’s a card game of sorts. It’s only several pages later that we receive an explanation as to the rules—which, admittedly, are hard-core.
The plot also swims around for a bit without going anywhere, and coupled with the prose, can be difficult to follow. It’s also slooowwwww. There are a few ‘wtf’ moments, but at least they were interesting compared to slogging to get there.
And lastly, I hated the characters. Nearly every single one. I liked the Idirans, even with their sense of superiority to ‘mortal’ lifeforms. They’re also freaking cool aliens, and the idea of them and their anthropomorphic (but not really) appearance stuck with me. I also liked Balveda, and she’s hilarious, but mostly because I hated Horza. It is not good to hate the main character, but Horza has little empathy for those around him, has such a strong hatred of the Culture that it’s impossible for him to see any nuance in certain situations, and murders often. We don’t know most of his motivations, just that he hates the Culture because he believes them an end to evolution. Horza is nonreligious and otherwise doesn’t seem concerned with the fate of the human race, so I wonder why this rankles him so. Not only that, at times he seems to have little to no empathy for others, and at other times he’s extremely concerned about their fates.
He wondered how Culture people faced the war; they were supposed to be able to decide to die, too, though it was said to be more complicated than simple poison. But how did they resist it, those soft, peace-pampered souls? He imagined them in combat, auto-euthanizing almost the instant the first shots landed, the first wounds started to appear. The thought made him smile.
Ladies and gentleman, our ‘hero.’ Even Jorg Ancranth felt bad about the people he killed. Horza claims he has no qualms about killing Culture; he even thinks he should kill Balveda multiple times—so the question remains, why didn't he? His motivation about wondering how the others perceive him rings false; he hadn't particularly cared up to that point.
Balveda, at the least, has her own set of internally consistent morals. Fal and Jase were also super cute, Unaha-Closp is funny, Yalson occasionally made me care (but only occasionally), and the Mind was an interesting examination of self and the idea of knowing the self.
I’m also slightly irritated at the condescending tone towards religion. Horza goes on and on about how much he thinks religion is irrational, and every religious character is portrayed as overly superstitious and a buffoon. He states he has a similar opinion on the matter as the Culture, so I suppose that’s their one common ground. However, some discussions were interesting enough, and Horza seems to be at least examining different points of view at times:
Horza didn’t believe in the Idirans’ religion any more than Balveda had, and indeed he could see in its over-deliberate, too-planned ideals exactly the sort of life-constricting forces he so despised in the Culture’s initially more benign ethos. But the Idirans relied on themselves, not on their machines, and so they were still part of life. To him, that made all the difference.
(Horza has an issue not with higher powers, though he doesn’t believe in them, but in reliance upon them)
“You’re just a hunk of meat. That’s all anybody is. Just meat. And anyway,” he kicked Horza again, “pain isn’t real. Just chemicals and electrics and that sort of thing, right?”
“Oh,” Horza croaked, his wounds aching briefly, “yes. Right.”
(Horza is confronted with the implications of his beliefs; is there more to the human experience than neuroscience and chemical messaging?)
That’s the first 300 pages. The last 200 are amazing. On their own, four stars. Pacing picked up immensely, and tension, characterization, and action became more fluid—but it wasn’t quite enough to fully save this book, since I had to slog through 300 pages to get there.
The galaxy is amazingly built. The cultures (and the Culture, ha!) are beautifully examined, though there are some asides that I really didn’t want to know about… Social and religious conflicts, technological innovation, and scientific wonders pervade. It’s the main reason I kept reading; every time I considered putting the book down, Banks amazed with another novel idea. While some of the long diatribes about philosophy felt gratuitous, the examination of different cultures’ points of view showed the strength of the world building; Banks went beyond superficial aesthetics and created genuine alien cultures.
The prose too can be gorgeous. Take this:
Against a wall of pure white towering higher than the Olmedreca’s tallest spire, the Megaship was throwing itself to destruction in a froth of debris and ice. It was like the biggest wave in the universe, rendered in scrap metal, sculpted in grinding junk; and beyond and about it, over and through, cascades of flashing, glittering ice and snow swept down in great snow veils from the cliff of frozen water beyond.
Or even this:
The mountain on the island grew larger very slowly. He felt as though he was building it, as though the effort required to make it appear larger in his sight was the same as if he was toiling to construct that peak; heap it up rock by rock, with his own hands...
While beautiful in places, though, it’s also obfuscating. The prologue itself was difficult to get through and is a rather accurate sample of the rest of the novel. Various terms are thrown out and readers are expected to piece meanings together, or infer from context; while I actually enjoy such academic exercises while reading, there were times that it made understanding what’s going on nearly impossible. Furthermore, there are places where the prose is so thick and detailed that it detracts from the action of the moment, and others when I really wanted more explanation and received bare-bones.
There are also moments of complete info-dump. There’s pages and pages on the initial crew of the CAT that throws a few personality traits and their appearances at me, and then I’m expected to care for these characters as they show little to any of the listed traits before fading out of the narrative. It didn’t work. I had to keep flipping back to remind myself who half the crew members even were. Another example was the opening of a chapter that takes place during a game of Damage, which is actually a very interesting idea, and perhaps one of my favorite parts of the novel. The chapter opens, however, with a reporter waxing lyrical about the game… while we still have no idea what it is, just that it’s a card game of sorts. It’s only several pages later that we receive an explanation as to the rules—which, admittedly, are hard-core.
The plot also swims around for a bit without going anywhere, and coupled with the prose, can be difficult to follow. It’s also slooowwwww. There are a few ‘wtf’ moments, but at least they were interesting compared to slogging to get there.
And lastly, I hated the characters. Nearly every single one. I liked the Idirans, even with their sense of superiority to ‘mortal’ lifeforms. They’re also freaking cool aliens, and the idea of them and their anthropomorphic (but not really) appearance stuck with me. I also liked Balveda, and she’s hilarious, but mostly because I hated Horza. It is not good to hate the main character, but Horza has little empathy for those around him, has such a strong hatred of the Culture that it’s impossible for him to see any nuance in certain situations, and murders often. We don’t know most of his motivations, just that he hates the Culture because he believes them an end to evolution. Horza is nonreligious and otherwise doesn’t seem concerned with the fate of the human race, so I wonder why this rankles him so. Not only that, at times he seems to have little to no empathy for others, and at other times he’s extremely concerned about their fates.
He wondered how Culture people faced the war; they were supposed to be able to decide to die, too, though it was said to be more complicated than simple poison. But how did they resist it, those soft, peace-pampered souls? He imagined them in combat, auto-euthanizing almost the instant the first shots landed, the first wounds started to appear. The thought made him smile.
Ladies and gentleman, our ‘hero.’ Even Jorg Ancranth felt bad about the people he killed. Horza claims he has no qualms about killing Culture; he even thinks he should kill Balveda multiple times—so the question remains, why didn't he? His motivation about wondering how the others perceive him rings false; he hadn't particularly cared up to that point.
Balveda, at the least, has her own set of internally consistent morals. Fal and Jase were also super cute, Unaha-Closp is funny, Yalson occasionally made me care (but only occasionally), and the Mind was an interesting examination of self and the idea of knowing the self.
I’m also slightly irritated at the condescending tone towards religion. Horza goes on and on about how much he thinks religion is irrational, and every religious character is portrayed as overly superstitious and a buffoon. He states he has a similar opinion on the matter as the Culture, so I suppose that’s their one common ground. However, some discussions were interesting enough, and Horza seems to be at least examining different points of view at times:
Horza didn’t believe in the Idirans’ religion any more than Balveda had, and indeed he could see in its over-deliberate, too-planned ideals exactly the sort of life-constricting forces he so despised in the Culture’s initially more benign ethos. But the Idirans relied on themselves, not on their machines, and so they were still part of life. To him, that made all the difference.
(Horza has an issue not with higher powers, though he doesn’t believe in them, but in reliance upon them)
“You’re just a hunk of meat. That’s all anybody is. Just meat. And anyway,” he kicked Horza again, “pain isn’t real. Just chemicals and electrics and that sort of thing, right?”
“Oh,” Horza croaked, his wounds aching briefly, “yes. Right.”
(Horza is confronted with the implications of his beliefs; is there more to the human experience than neuroscience and chemical messaging?)
That’s the first 300 pages. The last 200 are amazing. On their own, four stars. Pacing picked up immensely, and tension, characterization, and action became more fluid—but it wasn’t quite enough to fully save this book, since I had to slog through 300 pages to get there.