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Consider Phlebas is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1987. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (400x626, 94 KB) Scanned image of the 2005 Orbit Books reissue of Conisder Phlebas. ...
Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) writes mainstream novels as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks. ...
For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ...
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The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
The Culture is a fictional anarchic, socialistic and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions. ...
Some notable science fiction novels, in alphabetical order by title: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke 334 by Thomas M. Disch An Age by Brian Aldiss The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard...
A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ...
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately-held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. ...
Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ...
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The Bridge is a novel by Scottish author Iain Banks. ...
Espedair Street is a rock and roll-based novel by Iain Banks. ...
Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...
This article is about the literary concept. ...
This article is about the country. ...
Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) writes mainstream novels as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks. ...
Plot introduction The novel revolves around the Idiran-Culture War, and Banks plays on that theme by presenting various microcosms of that conflict. Perhaps surprisingly, especially since this is the first (published) Culture novel, its protagonist Bora Horza Gobuchul is actually an enemy of the Culture. The Idiran-Culture War is a major fictional conflict between the Idiran Empire and the Culture in the midst of which Iain M. Banks science fiction novel Consider Phlebas is set. ...
The Culture is a fictional anarchic, socialistic and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions. ...
Bora Horza Gobuchul is the main protagonist of the novel Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. ...
Plot summary Consider Phlebas is Banks' first science fiction novel set in the Culture, and takes its title from a line in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land. Look to Windward, whose title comes from the same poem, can be considered a loose follow-up. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...
Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ...
The Waste Land (1922), sometimes mistakenly written as The Wasteland, is a highly influential 434-line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot. ...
Look to Windward is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 2000. ...
The Culture and the Idiran Empire are at war in a galaxy-spanning conflict. Horza, a genetically-engineered mercenary capable of altering his appearance at will (a Changer), is assigned the task of retrieving a Culture Mind by his Idiran handlers. He encounters, and joins, a band of mercenaries and pirates, led by Kraiklyn, on their ship, the Clear Air Turbulence. All the while he is doggedly pursued by a Culture Special Circumstances agent, Perosteck Balveda. Kraiklyn leads the group in a disastrous raid on a Temple of Light for treasure in a backward planet and in the ensuing gunfight some of the crew die and they are unsuccessful. The Idirans are a fictional race in the Culture universe created by Iain Banks. ...
This article describes the fictional species mentioned in greater detail in the Culture science-fiction novels of Iain M. Banks, with the exception of the Culture humans itself. ...
In Iain M. Banks Culture novels, starships, planets and orbitals have their own Minds: self-conscious, hyperintelligent machines originally built by humanoid species but which have evolved, redesigned themselves, outsmarted their creators by several orders of magnitude since then. ...
In the science fiction of Iain M. Banks, Special Circumstances (SC) is an organisation that exists within the anarcho-socialist civilisation known as the Culture (which forms the basis of several of his novels and shorter works). ...
Perosteck Balveda is a character in the science fiction novel Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. ...
On Vavatch Orbital, which is scheduled for destruction in the war, Kraiklyn's Free Company plan to grab a replacement bow laser from an abandoned Megaship, but this also results in catastrophe as the massive ship collides onto an iceberg. Horza is separated from most of the crew who escape on the CAT as he escapes on the shuttle with a dying comrade. A sociopathic crew member is left behind and shoots at the escaping shuttle before triggering his nuclear warhead in anger at the crew's abandonment. The damage the radiation caused to the shuttle and its seriously wounded pilot result in the shuttle eventually falling into the ocean. Horza struggles to remain afloat until he is washed onto an island where he encounters The Eaters, a bizarre cannibalistic cult who hold him captive. Horza eventually succeeds in poisoning the leader of the cult with his fingernails and manages to escape in time to watch Kraiklyn play Damage on the capital city of Vavatch, then fights and kills him, to take control of the CAT. Illustration of an orbital created by Giuseppe Gerbino. ...
“Cannibal†redirects here. ...
Damage is a card game described in the science fiction novel Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. ...
By the time he returns the CAT, he impersonates Kraiklyn's features and fools the crew into believing he is their real captain. Horza is shocked to see Balveda show up in the CAT and he uses his appearance to stun her. Fearing a Special Circumstance plot, he impulsively pilots the CAT out of the GSV in a wild trail of destruction. Balveda reveals Horza's nature to the crew as they watch the Orbital get obliterated by the Culture. Despite Balveda's revelation, the crew decide to follow Horza on his mission. Horza ultimately leads the pirates to Schar's World, a Planet of the Dead, and the hideout of the fugitive Mind. There, with the help of Balveda (Horza's enemy who sees it is in her own interests to help him), he fights an infiltration team of Idirans (ignorant of his mission for the Idiran Armed Forces) through its underground railway network in his attempt to capture the prize. In the resulting series of firefights, more of the crew perish. Horza captures Xoxarle, one of the two remaining Idiran soldiers, and believes that the other is dead due to the grievous damage he suffered during one of the battles with Horza's crew. Horza and the pirates underestimate Idiran stamina though, and the presumed-dead Idiran drags his limbless body into one of the trains, driving it on a collision course with the one the crew decide to use to navigate the tunnels. As the collision is about to occur, Xoxarle breaks free and arms himself in an attempt to kill Horza and the crew. The remaining pirates,including Horza's love interest who earlier revealed she was pregnant with his child, are either killed by Xoxarle or die in the collision. Horza, enraged, pursues the Idiran, but Xoxarle batters him causing his eventual death from cranial trauma. Balveda, who had a multi-purpose Culture device called a memoryform hidden in a false tooth, uses it as a plasma gun and kills the Idiran. Balveda then pilots the CAT along with the Mind back to the Culture.
History Consider Phlebas, like most of Banks' early SF output, was a rewritten version of an earlier book.
"Phlebas was an old one too; it was written just after The Wasp Factory, in 1984. I've found that rewriting an old book took much more effort than writing one from scratch, but I had to go back to do right by these things. Now I can go on and start completely new stuff."[1]
Literary significance & criticism The book was generally very well-received as a fast-paced space opera with a morally ambiguous hero and lots of grand scenery and devices, some original to the genre with Banks, some borrowed from other authors: the Orbitals for example show the influence of Larry Niven. Some of the scenes, like Horza's fight with Kraiklyn and the escape from Vavatch Orbital in the stolen CAT, are regarded as among Banks' finest action writing. Classic pulp space opera cover, with the usual cliché elements. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
There is a debate among Banks fans about which Culture book is the best introduction to the fictional utopia. Consider Phlebas is an obvious contender, being the first published. The Player of Games is sometimes suggested as being easier to read. For other uses, see Utopia (disambiguation). ...
The Player of Games is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1988. ...
Banks said in an interview:
'There's a big war going on in [Consider Phlebas], and various individuals and groups manage to influence its outcome. But even being able to do that doesn't ultimately change things very much. At the book's end, I have a section pointing this out by telling what happened after the war, which was an attempt to pose the question, 'What was it all for?' I guess this approach has to do with my reacting to the cliché of SF's 'lone protagonist.' You know, this idea that a single individual can determine the direction of entire civilizations. It's very, very hard for a lone person to do that. And it sets you thinking what difference, if any, it would have made if Jesus Christ, or Karl Marx or Charles Darwin had never been. We just don't know.'[2] Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ...
For other people of the same surname, and places and things named after Charles Darwin, see Darwin. ...
Trivia Consider Phlebas is the first novel which refers to "sublimation". In this instance the Sublimed civilization are the Dra'Azon who guard the Planets of the Dead. The Sublimed are those alien civilisations in the science fiction works of Iain M. Banks (specifically his novels about The Culture) who have left the material universe behind to take up an immaterial existence. ...
The titles Consider Phlebas and Look to Windward come from a couplet in Part IV of T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, Death by Water:
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
Bibliography Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks, London: Macmillan, 1987, ISBN 0-333-44138-9 (paperback ISBN 1-85723-138-4)
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