Considering "Consider Phlebas"
I just finished Consider Phlebas, the first sci-fi book (published 1987) by British author Iain M. Banks.
Although Banks is accorded much praise in sci-fi circles, I found it somewhat of a chore to finish the book.
The story follows the adventures of Horza, one of the last Changers, people who can alter their physical appearance to resemble others, possess intricate control over physiological processes, and have several built-in weapons, such as retractable poisoned fangs and the ability to produce poison and acid through their saliva or sweat glands.
Horza is an agent for the Idirans, a race of large, three-legged aliens who are at war with the Culture -- the most advanced segment of human civilization. Horza despises the Culture for their amoralistic over-reliance on machines and technology.
The Idirans dispatch Horza to retrieve a Mind -- essentially an extremely advanced AI created by the Culture to help them win the war -- that has crash-landed on an icy planet controlled by a fearsome, god-like alien power.
Horza's main adversary is an agent of the Culture's "Special Circumstances" unit, who is also charged with recovering the Mind. Although mortal adversaries, the two nonetheless develop grudging respect and even affection for each other.
This backstory and tension between the two main characters are the most compelling parts of the book, but they never really get the attention they deserve. Instead, Horza lurches from crisis to crisis, finding himself variously fighting for life aboard a mercenary vessel, locked in a chaotic laser battle in a temple, nearly devoured alive by a horrifying fat man grown to Jabba-the-Hutt-like proportions, and observing a deadly futuristic card game. These random incidents are entertaining and even gripping when considered alone. But as part of the same storyline they seem too disconnected from one another and I kept wondering how they were going to all tie together. They never do.
Only the final third or so of the book deals with the main mission to recover the Mind. This part is fairly fastpaced, and Banks deftly spools out a number of different threads before finally weaving them all back together for a dramatic finale, which is unfortunately diminished by not really being all that final.
Banks turns out competent, even inspired prose. Some reviewers have found his use of laser beams and hyperspace drives a bit trite, but c'mon, it was 1987, and he supplies enough twists and fresh interpretations to make those things interesting even today. The book's most horrifyingly imaginative parts -- the aforementioned fat man, who eats people alive with various sets of razor-sharp steel false teeth, the card game in which losing hands are punished by killing off a member of the player's team -- are also the best. Banks is certainly not lacking in the imagination department.
But while it may be the case that, as has been suggested in other reviews, Horza was written as a morally ambiguous character, even an anti-hero, we still learn too little about why, exactly, he hates the Culture and what makes their reliance on extremely advanced technology so reprehensible in his eyes. It seems we are supposed to view Horza as a true rogue, one who uses and discards other people for his own ends in the same way that he can discard his physical appearance. But he is also given to acts of great selflessness, good humor, and honor, severely undercutting this "bad guy" cred.
It is probable that this moral ambiguity -- in the portrayal of both Horza and the background war -- is the intent of the author, and is supposed to make the novel sophisticated and thought-provoking. But without a strong moral component to drive the tension, I was simply left wondering, as I read the final passages, why I should care about anything I had just read.
Although Banks is accorded much praise in sci-fi circles, I found it somewhat of a chore to finish the book.
The story follows the adventures of Horza, one of the last Changers, people who can alter their physical appearance to resemble others, possess intricate control over physiological processes, and have several built-in weapons, such as retractable poisoned fangs and the ability to produce poison and acid through their saliva or sweat glands.
Horza is an agent for the Idirans, a race of large, three-legged aliens who are at war with the Culture -- the most advanced segment of human civilization. Horza despises the Culture for their amoralistic over-reliance on machines and technology.
The Idirans dispatch Horza to retrieve a Mind -- essentially an extremely advanced AI created by the Culture to help them win the war -- that has crash-landed on an icy planet controlled by a fearsome, god-like alien power.
Horza's main adversary is an agent of the Culture's "Special Circumstances" unit, who is also charged with recovering the Mind. Although mortal adversaries, the two nonetheless develop grudging respect and even affection for each other.
This backstory and tension between the two main characters are the most compelling parts of the book, but they never really get the attention they deserve. Instead, Horza lurches from crisis to crisis, finding himself variously fighting for life aboard a mercenary vessel, locked in a chaotic laser battle in a temple, nearly devoured alive by a horrifying fat man grown to Jabba-the-Hutt-like proportions, and observing a deadly futuristic card game. These random incidents are entertaining and even gripping when considered alone. But as part of the same storyline they seem too disconnected from one another and I kept wondering how they were going to all tie together. They never do.
Only the final third or so of the book deals with the main mission to recover the Mind. This part is fairly fastpaced, and Banks deftly spools out a number of different threads before finally weaving them all back together for a dramatic finale, which is unfortunately diminished by not really being all that final.
Banks turns out competent, even inspired prose. Some reviewers have found his use of laser beams and hyperspace drives a bit trite, but c'mon, it was 1987, and he supplies enough twists and fresh interpretations to make those things interesting even today. The book's most horrifyingly imaginative parts -- the aforementioned fat man, who eats people alive with various sets of razor-sharp steel false teeth, the card game in which losing hands are punished by killing off a member of the player's team -- are also the best. Banks is certainly not lacking in the imagination department.
But while it may be the case that, as has been suggested in other reviews, Horza was written as a morally ambiguous character, even an anti-hero, we still learn too little about why, exactly, he hates the Culture and what makes their reliance on extremely advanced technology so reprehensible in his eyes. It seems we are supposed to view Horza as a true rogue, one who uses and discards other people for his own ends in the same way that he can discard his physical appearance. But he is also given to acts of great selflessness, good humor, and honor, severely undercutting this "bad guy" cred.
It is probable that this moral ambiguity -- in the portrayal of both Horza and the background war -- is the intent of the author, and is supposed to make the novel sophisticated and thought-provoking. But without a strong moral component to drive the tension, I was simply left wondering, as I read the final passages, why I should care about anything I had just read.
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