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Cover of Consider Phlebas

Consider Phlebas

Iain M. Banks (2009-12-01)

Subgenre
Age groupAdult 18+
Content ratingHard R
Pages504 (Chunky (400-600))
Setting
CSM age18+

Content levels

ViolenceGraphic
Sexual contentMild
LanguageStrong

Trigger warnings

WarMass DeathViolenceGraphic ViolenceDeath

Positive tags

AdventureQuestHigh Angst

Tropes

WarQuestEnsembleMorally Gray ProtagonistHard SFPost-Scarcity SocietyAncient Artifact

Themes

War and MoralityFaith vs ReasonIndividual vs SocietySurvivalFutility of WarIdeological ConflictFree Will

Synopsis

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

Tags

Space OperaMilitary Science FictionPhilosophical Science Fiction