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. ...
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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
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Seller's Description:
Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 544 p. Culture. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 544 p. Culture. Audience: General/trade. Excellent condition. No cracks in spine, no markings. Some light shelf wear on edges. From private seller, non-smoking home. Number line is 10 9 8 7
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Very Good Plus / Very Good. Octavo, 8.5 in. x 5.7 in., pp. 471. Blue cloth-covered boards with gilt title to spine. Very light rubbing to extremities. Unmarked interior. Light sunning, and light rubbing to edges of dustjacket. Protected in mylar. "Consider Phlebas is a space opera novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks. It is the first in a series of novels about an interstellar post-scarcity society called the Culture. The novel revolves around the Idiran-Culture War, and Banks plays on that theme by presenting various microcosms of that conflict. Its protagonist Bora Horza Gobuchul is an enemy of the Culture." (from Wikipedia) "Escape seemed impossible: 'there was one bewilderingly complicated and unlikely way out of the concentric shells of erupting energies now opening like the petals of some immense flower between the star systems. It was not, however, a route the Mind of a small, archaic warship could plan for, create and follow. By the time it was noticed that the ships Mind had taken exactly that path through its screen of annihilation, it was too late to stop it from falling away through hyperspace towards the small, cold planet fourth out from the single yellow sun of the nearby systems...the planet the Mind had made for through its shield of explosions was not one they could simply attack, destroy or even land on; it was Schar's World, near the region of barren space between two galactic strands called the Sullen Gulf, and it was one of the forbidden planets of the Dead"
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Seller's Description:
1st U.S. edition, 1st printing. 471 pp. Fine book in blue boards with gilt lettering to spine (binding square and tight, no markings; slight softening to spine tips) / Fine dust jacket (price not clipped; a trace of wear to head and heel of dj spine and to top of front flap-fold). A clean, fresh, unread copy.
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F in F- jacket. F/F-. 8vo. original yellow boards (paperstock a trifle tanned, else clean & bright throughout) in dustwrapper (faintly rubbed); pp. (viii (last blank)), 472 (last blank). A fine copy of the first 'The Culture' novel, uncommon and in demand.
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Hopkinson, Richard. F-/F. 471 p. 1st edition hardcover from MacMillan (UK), 1987. SIGNED BY IAIN M BANKS! His 1st published SF novel. FINE MINUS IN FINE DJ. Richard Hopkinson jacket art.
Shades of McCaffrey's "Ship who ...." series came to mind at the beginning. Soon the writing style of James Fenimore Cooper's seemed to taking over. The author weaves the story around the ideas of a war between technologists and individualists, between secularism and fundamentalism, machine and human. The story jumps around a bit and he does provide an epilogue. In short, it was s slog getting through it.