The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner)
The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination. The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction. The Culture Series
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
Show more
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
I like the world-building in this book. I like the conflict between the two alien groups, and I like that we're sort of supposed to root for the other team, not the hero of the story's side (I think, I did).
What I didn't love was that this is one of those adventure stories that just goes from one thing to the next without there really being great believable reasons for it. At a minimum there isn't a great reason for the author to spend so much time on the obstacles to the main challenge, in this case entering Schar's World and retrieving the Mind.
I really wanted to like this book because I inherited a whole bunch of Culture Wars books from my dad, and now I'm less excited to read through them, but I will give it at least one more try with book #2.
What I didn't love was that this is one of those adventure stories that just goes from one thing to the next without there really being great believable reasons for it. At a minimum there isn't a great reason for the author to spend so much time on the obstacles to the main challenge, in this case entering Schar's World and retrieving the Mind.
I really wanted to like this book because I inherited a whole bunch of Culture Wars books from my dad, and now I'm less excited to read through them, but I will give it at least one more try with book #2.
Show more
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.