Review: Consider Phlebas
Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book changed my life. I was in the last year of high-school, studying literature I hated and escaping in golden era classics like the Lensmen series and Asimov. Problem was that I could see the limitations these books had when compared to "real literature" They lacked the finess of language, the dialogue was at times cliche and stilted, and any themes or greater meaning they offered were shallow and best summed up as "white man will beat everyone with their superior cleverness"
Iain M. Banks's first culture novel, Consider Phlebas, changed all that. It allowed me my geeky escapism, and at the same time proved that the world of literature could have spaceships as much as period costumes. It also helped that one of the poems I had to read for that year was "The Waste Land" by TS Elliot -- the very poem the title of this Culture book comes from.
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Confession time: I have never read Iain M Banks. He's on my TBR pile, I swear, but so is half of Amazon at this point. I have only ever heard great things about his writing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there is an award for you over on my blog.
I may have also mentioned you have a giveaway going! :)
Definitely added this to my TBR list. Thanks for the recommendation.
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