O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,Ĭonsider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and The characters and events in this book are fictitious. The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Ltd. Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA. Originally published in Great Britain by Macmillan London Limited,ġ987, and in the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,ĭistributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written 'Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth.'Įxcerpt from Matter copyright © 2008 by Iain M. Scale… with a revelatory energy rarely matched in speculative fiction.' 'Pyrotechnic, action-filled, satiric, outlandish, deep and frivolous all at once, these bravura space operas… juggle galactic 'An exquisitely riotous tour de force of the imagination which writes its own rules simply for the pleasure of breaking them.'

Our own little circle of western civilization.' They're about faith in the future, about the belief that societiesĬan make sense of themselves, can have fun doing so, can live by Good Works, and can do so in circumstances far removed from 'The Culture Books are not technological just-so stories. 'Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction.' 'Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy-the books of Iain M. 'There is now no British SF writer to whose work I look forward with greater keenness.' 'Banks is a phenomenon… writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance.' 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. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind.

Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. The Idirans fought for their Faith the Culture for its moral right to exist. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. 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.

Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture.

Consider phlebas by iain m banks