Lmst

Jeff Hawke by Sydney Jordan
#comicstrip #jeffhawke #scifi #sciencefiction #comicstrips #spaceopera

A reread of Consider Phlebas

Iain Banks’ Culture setting is probably the closest thing to outright paradise in science fiction. It’s an interstellar post-scarcity techno-anarchist utopia, where sentient machines do all the work and the humans hang around engaging in hobbies or other hedonistic pursuits. Some do choose to work, but there’s no requirement for it since money isn’t required. Everyone is effectively immortal and lives as long as they want.

It’s worth noting that in the Culture books “human” means biological humanoid since many of the stories take place before Earth is contacted. This follows a trend in sci-fi in the late 1970s and 80s, following the lead of Star Wars, of telling stories of characters who are aliens that just happen to look and act like us. Banks hangs a lantern on the implausibility of this in at least one of the books, but I can’t recall him ever addressing it in detail.

There are no laws in the Culture, only reputations and consensus. Everyone is free to do whatever they want. However, someone who shows themselves to be dangerous might have a drone assigned to keep them from hurting any other sentient entities.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the Culture are the Minds, vast AI intelligences who control titanic spaceships, space habitats such as orbitals, and warships, among other major functions. This notion of god-like AI might be the biggest influence these novels have had, both on sci-fi and the wider culture. (Although what’s often left out of the wider meme is the Culture Minds’ internal workings existing in hyperspace, meaning their god-like capabilities come from processing information faster than light and in a hyperdimensional realm, essentially working on magic.)

All of which is to say that the Culture unapologetically solves its problems with technology advanced enough to simply render them obsolete.

Banks admitted in interviews that something like the Culture probably isn’t possible, but it made an interesting backdrop for exploring philosophical questions. I recently discovered that one of the Culture books I had missed when I read them many years ago, Excession, is coming out in ebook format later this year, which I’ve already pre-ordered. And that Amazon Prime is planning a TV series based on Consider Phlebas, the first Culture novel. Given their recent track record, I’m not sure how optimistic to feel about that.

But it reminded me that it’s probably been something like twenty years since I read Consider Phlebas, and that a reread might be interesting. Particularly since the first time I initially bounced off of it, and had to be convinced by a friend to finish it and look at the other books. I enjoyed it a lot more this time, either because my tastes have changed, or because I already knew where the story was going.

The Culture is at war with the Idiran Empire, a theocracy of huge warlike aliens. (They seem very similar to Halo‘s Covenant, which they likely inspired.) Horza is a changer, someone who can take on the form of other people, along with other capabilities such as poison nails and saliva. He is an agent working for the Idirans, not because he believes in their religion or cause, but because he’s opposed to the Culture, repulsed by their dependence on machines, which he is convinced will eventually turn on the biological entities.

Most of the story is told from Horza’s viewpoint. He’s a tough and relentless protagonist who we are with through several adventures. He’s often sympathetic, but seems blind to the atrocities the Idirans are committing. While he is usually conscientious toward the people he fall in with throughout the story, his attitude toward machines seems unrelentingly hostile. At one point he ruthlessly destroys a friendly AI that’s in his way, and his attitude toward a drone that saves his life is not to regard it as a thinking feeling entity, but as just a mechanism. And he ultimately coerces a captured crew into perilous mission.

Horza is opposed by a Culture agent named Balveda. She is a member of Special Circumstances, which Horza considers the Culture’s version of military intelligence. If there is a hero in this story, it’s Balveda. Although she spends most of the book being passive, with most of her agency offstage. We only get into her viewpoint late in the story.

Horza and Balveda have a high regard for each other. Balveda attempts to save Horza early in the book and Horza is concerned when he hears the Idiran order to execute Balveda when she is a prisoner. Later in the book, Horza often feels like he should kill Balveda but always seems to have an excuse not to.

The MacGuffin of the story is a Culture Mind that escaped an attack by hiding in tunnels on a world. The world is protected by a powerful alien entity neither the Idirans nor the Culture can afford to antagonize. Yet the Idirans want to capture the Mind for the information it contains, and the Culture wants to rescue it. Horza is sent by the Idirans because he may be allowed in by the alien entity, because he once worked on that world with a team of changers, one of which was his lover. He accepts on the shaky promise that afterward he might be allowed to leave with her and enough money to retire as an agent.

However along the way Horza is captured by a team of pirates and ends up on a series of side adventures which show us various locations in this universe, including a “temple of light”, an orbital, and Schar’s World, a planet which is effectively the burned out grave of a civilization that destroyed itself in warfare, and which is where the Mind is hiding.

Without spoiling too much, this is not a happy tale, which was the reason I reacted against it the first time. But it does have some interesting situations and a lot of action, and as an introduction to the Culture, it has the occasional philosophical discussion. I enjoyed and recommend it if you’ve never tried it. I will warn that Banks’ pacing is far from snappy, but it doesn’t feel as ponderous as some of the other stuff I’ve recently complained about.

While waiting for Excession I might reread some of the other Culture novels, particularly Surface Detail, my favorite. I suspect the TV show, if it gets made, will draw material from a lot of these books, not just the first.

Have you read Consider Phlebas, or any of the other Culture novels? If so, what did you think? Read anything else with similar themes worth checking out?

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #bookReview #bookReviews #posthuman #sciFi #ScienceFiction #SciFi #SpaceOpera

Cover of Consider Phlebas showing an artificial ocean under a starry background.

Here’s the YouTube live stream of our show this evening, Saturday 28 June 2025:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rALISh-2RA

#alazarinmobius #theinvisibleband #interplanetaryliberationfront #progressiverock #spacerock #secondlife #cubase #livestream #bandcamp #youtube #music #progrock #livestreammusic #scifi #spaceopera #mastomusic #musodon

Jeff Hawke by Sydney Jordan
#comicstrip #jeffhawke #scifi #sciencefiction #comicstrips #spaceopera

Here’s the YouTube live stream of our show this evening, Friday 27 June 2025:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMgAFWAAYP8

#alazarinmobius #theinvisibleband #interplanetaryliberationfront #progressiverock #spacerock #secondlife #cubase #livestream #bandcamp #youtube #music #progrock #livestreammusic #scifi #spaceopera #mastomusic #musodon

currently working on a hitbar for better visual feedback on the health status of a ship

#GameDev #Update #SpaceOpera #GODOT #indiedeveloper

Jeff Hawke by Sydney Jordan
#comicstrip #jeffhawke #scifi #sciencefiction #comicstrips #spaceopera

Lost Planet (Starship of the Ancients #2) by A.K. DuBoff
Release Date June 27, 2025
#ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

https://www.risingshadow.net/book/77819-lost-planet

No gameplay or feature today, just a small test with normal maps.

Heute kein Gameplay oder Feature, einfach ein kleiner Test mit normal Maps.

#GameDev #Update #SpaceOpera #GODOT #indiedev

https://youtu.be/wVhxVR-k9pI

Jeff Hawke by Sydney Jordan
#comicstrip #jeffhawke #scifi #sciencefiction #comicstrips #spaceopera

Global Elections (Star Farmer #11) by Jaxon Reed
Release Date June 26, 2025
#ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

https://www.risingshadow.net/book/80396-global-elections

Here’s the YouTube live stream of our show this evening, Friday 27 June 2025:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59xIlqloAVI

#alazarinmobius #theinvisibleband #interplanetaryliberationfront #progressiverock #spacerock #secondlife #cubase #livestream #bandcamp #youtube #music #progrock #livestreammusic #scifi #spaceopera #mastomusic #musodon

The video shows the GameLoop with some improvements in combat. You can now see which target the ship is heading for, customised mouse cursors and the weapons only fire when they are activated.

Das Video zeigt den GameLoop mit einigen Verbesserungen im Kampf. So sieht man jetzt welches Ziel das Schiff ansteuert, angepasste MausCursor und die Waffen feuern erst wenn Sie aktiviert werden.

#GameDev #Update #SpaceOpera #GODOT #indiedev

https://youtu.be/225Prokb05Q

Jeff Hawke by Sydney Jordan
#comicstrip #jeffhawke #scifi #sciencefiction #comicstrips #spaceopera