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Consider Phlebas: A Culture Novel (The Culture)

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Banks always uses the names of his sapient spaceships – chosen by the Minds themselves – as ironic commentary, and this novel contains some of his best, such as the Ethics Gradient, the Not Invented Here, the Frank Exchange of Views, and the Zero Gravitas. Excession is the favourite of many Culture fans, though Look to Windward (hello again, TS Eliot) and the extremely dark and brilliant Use of Weapons are also deservedly revered.

Better to Die than Be Killed: Lamm claims that his space suit contains a small nuke that he intends to detonate rather than be killed or captured, with the added implication that he'd also do it if someone pissed him off enough. When the Megaship job goes south, Lamm and several other crewmembers are left behind, and in a fit of rage he proves that he wasn't kidding. The Culture is an intergalactic utopia, but readers should not come to Consider Phlebas expecting dystopian narrative. The machines, led by their brilliant and sentient Minds, are benevolent and they seek to offer a paradise to the humanoids in their care. The novel is not even a dystopian narrative in the way Thomas More’s Utopia often seems disturbing in its stringent rules and guidelines. Readers are meant to envy life in the Culture. Mary on Beyond The Exorcist: Five Movies That Explore Possession From Non-Christian Perspectives 3 hours agoGhost Planet: Schar's World, the planet where the lost Mind is hiding, is a world that once evolved sentient life with an advanced civilization until said life wiped itself out in the culmination of something like our Cold War. Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Fal N'geestra is an adventurous young Thrill Seeker who enjoys climbing mountains without safety equipment — and also happens to be a Referer, one of an infinitesimally small number of the Culture's citizens who hold some form of precognitive ability allowing them to occasionally outsmart the Minds. This can almost literally be compared to outwitting God, making her an extreme case of Smarter Than They Look. This article is inadequately referenced. You can help the The Culture Wiki by adding references according to the referencing policy. Horza is an Idiran spy, and his unfortunate state is a consequence of being caught impersonating a high-ranking government official—he murdered the original, which is apparently Horza’s standard operating procedure—on a Culture-allied planet called Sorpen. (Sorpen is run by a “gerontocracy”, a ruling body entirely composed of elderly men. Typical Banks: this interesting idea, which might have formed a setting for a whole other novel, is used, noted, and never dealt with again.) Failure Hero: Horza is a Failure Anti-Hero— barring his miraculous escape from The Ends Of Invention, almost everything he sets out to do goes horribly wrong... And it usually isn't even his fault, either.

It’s not clear if Banks actually anticipated that his CULTURE series would eventually extend to 10 volumes, and mark him as a very literary and subversive practitioner of the SF genre, one who could be popular with a certain devoted fan base while at the same time thumbing his nose at the more low-brow wish-fulfillment aspects of space opera. Mostly likely he didn’t.All of it dust now, all of their precious humanoid civilization ground to junk under glaciers or weathered away by wind and spray and rain and frozen ice - all of it. Only this pathetic maze-tomb left. Gerald Jonas in The New York Times praised the sophistication of Banks' writing and said "he asks readers to hold in mind a great many pieces of a vast puzzle while waiting for a pattern to emerge". Jonas suggested the ending might appear to rely too much on a deus ex machina. [2] Look to Windward is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 2000. It is Banks' sixth published novel to feature the Culture. The book's dedication reads: "For the Gulf War Veterans".

Yes," he replied, not taking his eyes away from the screen on the wall above the end of the main mess-room table. "My survival." Shapeshifting: An interesting, relatively "hard" example: Horza's species was genetically engineered to have a limited (but still useful, for a spy) ability to shape-shift. Horza can take on the appearance of another person, and eventually replace them. This is a complex, lengthy process in which the physical structure of Horza's face and body are gradually altered by his specialized biology. Shapeshifter Baggage and other common shape-shifting tropes are averted. Sympathetic P.O.V.: Horza hates the Culture and, for example, while the later novels draw humor from the humorous/macabre names the Culture gives to ships, he's disgusted by this apparent display of the Culture's cavalier attitude towards something as grim as interstellar warfare. Horza can be cruel and ruthless, but many readers will find themselves rooting for him because he is an underdog. After all, he has taken on perhaps the most difficult assignment in the universe: outwitting a Culture Mind. As if that were not enough, Banks seems to almost enjoy twisting circumstance against Horza. In spite of his best-laid plans, things never seem to go as planned. Batman Gambit: Xoxarle breaks one of Balveda's arms, and leaves her hanging on for dear life to a gantry with the aim of forcing the incredibly pissed-off Horza to choose between avenging his pregnant girlfriend and saving her... He chooses the latter. This allows Xoxarle to ambush the Changer, inflicting the injuries which ultimately kill him.Or maybe he only wanted to pretend that he would find it very difficult; maybe it would be no bother at all, and the sort of bogus camaraderie of doing the same job, though on different sides, was just that: a fake.”

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