
By hook or by crook
the Culture will win. Its Minds
have all done the math.
Well this book doesn't have anything to do with that. Sure, that is all going on, but point of fact is, the main character of Consider Phlebas hates the Culture. Thinks they are a bunch of idiots who have let themselves turn into pawns for their machines, thinks they are a cancer on the galaxy. To that end he's aligned himself with the Idirans-- immortal, three meter tall killing machines in the middle of a religious jihad against the Culture. Not that he cares about their religion; he just wants someone to stop the Culture. He's also a shapeshifter-- not the quick morphing space opera kind, but rather somebody with an ability to control his metabolism enough to digest & deposit bone, muscle, skin-- all that. Well-- he makes his way across a swath of cosmos to carry out a task-- find a Mind lost on a planet off-limits to everyone else. Along the way he meets, you know, the usual suspects. Wretched hive of scum & villainy. All that jazz. The last third of the book is all planet-side, & gets pretty grim. I quite liked it; not the ending I would have chose, but as a setting? A series? I'm definately in. I'll need to get the next one soon. The Player of Games is the next one.