A reread of Consider Phlebas

Science Fiction 4 Minutes

Iain Banks’ Culture setting is probably the closest thing to outright paradise in science fiction. It’s an interstellar post-scarcity techno-anarchist utopia, where sentient machines do all the work and the humans hang around engaging in hobbies or other hedonistic pursuits. Some do choose to work, but there’s no requirement for it since money isn’t required. Everyone is effectively immortal and lives as long as they want.

It’s worth noting that in the Culture books “human” means biological humanoid since many of the stories take place before Earth is contacted. This follows a trend in sci-fi in the late 1970s and 80s, following the lead of Star Wars, of telling stories of characters who are aliens that just happen to look and act like us. Banks hangs a lantern on the implausibility of this in at least one of the books, but I can’t recall him ever addressing it in detail.

There are no laws in the Culture, only reputations and consensus. Everyone is free to do whatever they want. However, someone who shows themselves to be dangerous might have a drone assigned to keep them from hurting any other sentient entities.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the Culture are the Minds, vast AI intelligences who control titanic spaceships, space habitats such as orbitals, and warships, among other major functions. This notion of god-like AI might be the biggest influence these novels have had, both on sci-fi and the wider culture. (Although what’s often left out of the wider meme is the internal workings of the Culture Minds exist in hyperspace, meaning their god-like capabilities come from processing information faster than light and in a hyperdimensional realm, essentially working on magic.)

All of which is to say that the Culture unapologetically solves its problems with technology advanced enough to simply render them obsolete.

Banks admitted in interviews that something like the Culture probably isn’t possible, but it made an interesting backdrop for exploring philosophical questions. I recently discovered that one of the Culture books I had missed when I read them many years ago, Excession, is coming out in ebook format later this year, which I’ve already pre-ordered. And that Amazon Prime is planning a TV series based on Consider Phlebas, the first Culture novel. Given their recent track record, I’m not sure how optimistic to feel.

But it reminded me that it’s probably been something like twenty years since I read Consider Phlebas, and that a reread might be interesting. Particularly since the first time I initially bounced off of it, and had to be convinced by a friend to finish it and look at the other books. I enjoyed it a lot more this time, either because my tastes have changed, or because I already knew where the story was going.

The Culture is at war with the Idiran Empire, a theocracy of huge warlike aliens. (They seem very similar to Halo‘s Covenant, which they likely inspired.) Horza is a changer, someone who can take on the form of other people, along with other capabilities such as poison nails and saliva. He is an agent working for the Idirans, not because he believes in their religion or cause, but because he’s opposed to the Culture, repulsed by their dependence on machines, which he is convinced will eventually turn on the biological entities.

Most of the story is told from Horza’s viewpoint. He’s a tough and relentless protagonist who we are with through several adventures. He’s often sympathetic, but seems blind to the atrocities the Idirans are committing. While he is usually conscientious toward the people he falls in with throughout the story, his attitude toward machines seems unrelentingly hostile. At one point he ruthlessly destroys a friendly AI that’s in his way, and his attitude toward a drone that saves his life is not to regard it as a thinking feeling entity, but as just a mechanism. And he ultimately coerces a captured crew into a perilous mission.

Horza is opposed by a Culture agent named Balveda. She is a member of Special Circumstances, which Horza considers the Culture’s version of military intelligence. If there is a hero in this story, it’s Balveda. Although she spends most of the book being passive, with most of her agency offstage. We only get into her viewpoint late in the story.

Horza and Balveda have a high regard for each other. Balveda attempts to save Horza early in the book and Horza is concerned when he hears the Idiran order to execute Balveda when she is a prisoner. Later in the book, Horza often feels like he should kill Balveda but always seems to have an excuse not to.

The MacGuffin of the story is a Culture Mind that escaped an attack by hiding in tunnels on a world. The world is protected by a powerful alien entity neither the Idirans nor the Culture can afford to antagonize. Yet the Idirans want to capture the Mind for the information it contains, and the Culture wants to rescue it. Horza is sent by the Idirans because he may be allowed in by the alien entity since he once worked on that world with a team of changers, one of which was his lover. He accepts the mission on the shaky promise that afterward he might be allowed to leave with her and enough money to retire as an agent.

However along the way Horza is captured by a team of pirates and ends up in a series of side adventures which show us various settings in this universe, including a “temple of light”, an orbital, and Schar’s World, a planet which is effectively the burned out grave of a civilization that destroyed itself in warfare, and which is where the Mind is hiding.

Without spoiling too much, this is not a happy tale, which was the reason I reacted against it the first time. But it does have some interesting situations and a lot of action, and as an introduction to the Culture, it has the occasional philosophical discussion. I enjoyed and recommend it if you’ve never tried it. I will warn that Banks’ pacing is far from snappy, but it doesn’t feel as ponderous as some of the other stuff I’ve recently complained about.

While waiting for Excession I might reread some of the other Culture novels, particularly Surface Detail, my favorite. I suspect the TV show, if it gets made, will draw material from a lot of these books, not just the first.

Have you read Consider Phlebas, or any of the other Culture novels? If so, what did you think? Read anything else with similar themes worth checking out?

Published

15 thoughts on “A reread of Consider Phlebas”

  1. @selfawarepatterns.com This was my first Culture book and, like you, I found it a bit too bleak for my taste. I probably bought too much into Horza's point of view =)
    I don't remember why I decided to read another (probably thanks to peer pressure) – luckily Excession was my second one, and it turned me into enough of a fan that a Phlebas re-read made it a lot more palatable.
    Didn't try to re-read Use of Weapons, though. That's a bit too much.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I don’t know if “bought into” was my issue, but I think I did empathize too much with him. It helped me to view it as the story from the villain’s viewpoint. Although the appendices remove any relief from the bleakness.

      I totally agree on Use of Weapons. That’s one I have no desire to re-experience.

      Like

      Reply

      1. @selfawarepatterns.com yes, perhaps that's a better way of putting it. I basically spent the whole novel thinking that the Culture was a giant assemblage of turds (with Fwi-Song probably being responsible for 75% of my opinion)

        Like

        1. Me too. This time I noticed that the Vavatch orbital had a lot of non-Culture like attributes (like money), which made me realize it was third party territory outside of the Culture. It means we only get very limited access to the actual Culture in this book, mainly through the Fal ’Ngeestra interludes.

          Like

          Reply

    2. @pgcd @selfawarepatterns.com I clocked Horza as a villain early but had put them in the "lovable rogue" slot for too long, after the callous way they step over the bodies of their pirate ship crewmates who saved their life. The story is bleak, it's a rollicking adventure but the end planet is haunting and everything they do, all the sacrifices and bravery and death are worth nothing in the end. Kind of like the first episode of Black Mirror with the pig.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Agreed, and the appendices make clear just how pointless. In the end only the Mind and the drone Unaha-Closp have a decent fate.

        I’ve never been able to finish that BM episode. It’s not the sex with an animal aspect, but the whole setup around it that I just can’t stay in the story for.

        Like

        Reply

        1. @selfawarepatterns.com that the only ep I watched, but it makes clear at the end that all the sacrifices made by the characters was worth nothing because the villain released the hostage before the horrible stuff happened, which is a connection I just made between the two stories. Bleak

          Liked by 1 person

  3. @selfawarepatterns.com I also haven't read this for 20 years, and my old review doesn't really do it justice. https://rdmp.org/dale-mellor/bookblog/?review=consider-phlebas

    #iainmbanks #considerphlebas

    Liked by 1 person

  4. I have read all Bank’s fiction books several times over and will probably do so again. I wonder whether “Whit” is my favourite? What a versatile and amusing mind.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I have to admit I’m completely unfamiliar with Banks’ non-sci-fi stuff. It doesn’t look like much of it is available digitally. Based on the Wikipedia summary, Whit sounds interesting, almost like a commentary on how religion works?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Yes – it’s gently hilarious. Every single one of Bank’s books is greatly worth reading. On SF, my favourite is Excession. The fascination of some vastly different reality and an intelligence vastly superior even to the Minds.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
  5. Pingback: The Left Hand of Darkness – SelfAwarePatterns

Your thoughts?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.