Consider Phlebas (SF) - Iain Banks ***

This title didn't quite work for me. The absolute joy and totally original creation of Banks' science fiction books is the Culture. This hedonistic, clever, human and machine, seemingly anarchistic yet superbly functional empire without an emperor is a work of creative genius and in most of his Culture books it is front and centre. One of the problems with Consider Phelbas is that, although the Culture has a presence throughout as one side in a war, the book isn't about the Culture but rather an individual and his crusade against the Culture, which he feels is ultimately wrong for humanity. Because of this, he sides with the three-legged species with which the Culture is reluctantly at war.

The result is that the book descends into baroque space opera pure and simple, where Banks' books are usually far more, even though they use all of the language and paraphernalia of the space opera genre. If you enjoy pure space opera, this will be good news - but it's rarely my thing. There's an element of a quest story, but an awful lot of set piece battles and unpleasant scenes where the protagonist comes close to death in sadistic ways. Though there are brief asides set in the Culture (and one ambiguous Culture central character), they feel tacked on and don't particularly add to the story. I'm afraid it also felt far too long and some of the set pieces - notably when the mega ship hits the ice - were hard to follow descriptively. I've been fascinated by every Culture book I've read so far - but this one wasn't for me. I gather it was the first of the Culture novels, and it may be that the author was yet to settle into his stride.

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Review by Brian Clegg

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