Finished Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks today, finally completing my read-through of the Culture books (although it's been a while since I read Excession or The State of the Art).
On its own, it was a very good book, though I had some issues with it. It's a solid adventure story with some great action sequences; probably the most cinematic of any of the Culture books. Horza was an interesting protagonist, Balveda a good representative of the Culture, and the supporting cast was good. Spoilers for the ending:
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The ending was rather...frustrating. The story ended up seeming rather pointless; almost the entire cast dies, the course of the war isn't much affected. The antagonist Idirans were technically defeated, but they were introduced too late for that to be much of a climax. There's some character development, but it doesn't seem to reach a proper ending; it feels like Horza's arc was building towards something, but he didn't quite reach it before dying.
As part of the Culture series, it fills in a bit of background detail for some of the other books, but nothing essential. Look to Windward is the most relevant sequel, but it covered its own background well enough. I'd heard Consider Phlebas throws too much information at the reader to be a good introduction to the Culture, but I didn't find that to be the case - the problem is too little information on the Culture itself. (If you want a book that really overwhelms the reader, look at Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief)
Now that I'm finally done with the series, I'm contemplating a re-read/commentary/Let's Read of the Culture series. Does that sound interesting to the SF fans here?
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