Rating: 
Summary: Head and shoulders above most of the genre
Review: The superb quality of this work becomes even more surprising when you realise that its Banks first stab at a Science Fiction novel. He writes with such style and assurance that it puts him way up there with the greats such as Vernor Vinge and Donald Moffitt and beyond the reach of other good writers like Larry Niven and Philip Jose Farmer.The story encompasses a tiny segment of a galactic war. The Culture, a humane society ruled by benevolent machines is at war with the immortal and biological Idirians . Neither will yield and each side is quite happy to use the 'weapons at the end of the Universe' against their opponent. The main character Horza is really likeable and in spite of his alien abilities he is the most recognisably human person in the book. He is driven not by his love of the Idirians and their somewhat brutal civilisation, but by his almost irrational loathing of the machines that run the Culture. This is a deep, exiting and well-crafted tale and is highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: 4.5 Stars Science Fiction on a Grand Scale
Review: I've had 'Consider Phlebas' sitting on my shelf for years. I wish now that I'd read it long ago. Banks' novel is an awe inspiring work of Space Opera. If you like your science fiction on a grand scale then this is the novel for you! Everything is larger than life...the spaceships carry billions, enormous artificial habitats are destroyed as though they are made of noting more substantial than Lego. One set piece follows another and the pace of the story rarely lets up. The characters are a bit weak in their realization and development. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? This is a dilemma for the reader but let's face it, the real attraction of this type of fiction is the hardware. Characterization is always going to fall short when the background of a story is a war that kills hundreds of billions of people. There's little not to like here and I will definitely be moving on to the next volume of Banks' Culture novels.
Rating:
Summary: Wicked, Haunting SF!
Review: I spent some time after I read this book trying to justfy whether the truly incredible and unforgettable conclusion to this novel made up for what I felt was a meandering, directionless beginning. It does. Ten times over. As a science fiction novel it is an excellent work. For a man who hadn't previously written science fiction this is a truly a revelation. The book opens in prison with a man drowning in the faeces and urine of his captors. It is claustrophobic and compelling as only drowning in human waste can be. From there it seems to lose its way, as the main protagonist moves from one unrelated and bewilderingly extensive action scene to the next. Characters are introduced in some detail, developed or left veiled in portentous mystery, only to be forgotten. I found myself asking, where is this going? What is happening? And then somewhere, about half way through, almost indentifiable to a particular page, the world changes. The whole book, the chararcters, the description and the plot come abruptly to life. It is as though Banks has had an epiphany. The narrative follows the actions of Horza, an enigmatic and withdrawn secret agent, as he attempts to capture a Culture Mind lost in forbidden territory.As Horza finally gets round to the task at hand the tension suddenly and dramatically mounts. Darkness falls and the subterranean base on the polar world in which this book is, for the last part at least, set vibrates with intensity and drama. The final 200 pages or so are some of the most vivid and exciting I have read, leaving me with images and memories which I will not forget for a long, long time. The novel is not necessarily provocative or philosophical. And no, you won't sit around gazing out the window at the stars wondering about life, the universe and everything. You will be more inclined to think, 'Holy xxxx! What a rush!'. It is simply, for the last 200 pages, suspense and adrenalin. Captivating and relentless. Endings like this don't come around so often. It is like rolling slowly and deliberately over the summit of a roller coaster ride before hurlting violently and inexorably towards the earth. Great stuff!! The stuff on which dark dreams are made.
Rating:
Summary: Top-class SF
Review: This was the first Iain M. Banks book I read and it blew me away. It is one of many SF books to explore grand concepts like Artificial Intelligence, huge spaceships and Interstellar War, but it is one of very few to it believably and with dramatic tension. The war is between the Idirans, who are driven by religion and natural aggression born from a harsh home-planet, and the Culture, a luxury-loving empire largely run by machines. Until attacked by the Idirans, the machines spent most of their time mixing drinks for the Culture's biological citizens, but are now having to apply their (artificial) intelligence to war. The plot traces the story of Horza, an Idiran secret agent trying to capture a Culture Mind (Minds are big thinking machines that do most of the Culture's planning and strategy) which has gone to ground in neutral territory. Far from the Idiran front line, Horza is thrown very much on his own resources. He has to enlist help from the sad detritus of neutrals, each trying to get by and if possible profiteer at the margins of the war, to attempt to reach and capture the Mind. Naturally the Culture is also trying to recover this machine, and sends an agent who inevitably clashes with Horza. The trouble is that, across a gulf of fanaticism and violence, the two agents quite like each other. Banks' execution of this plot is totally absorbing. Huge concepts spring beautifully to the minds' eye, and the characters evoke interest and sympathy. The book starts with a prologue of the Mind's near-capture by Idiran ships and taking refuge on a neutral world. How do you describe the twists and turns of a super-intelligent machine trying to escape a host of hostile pursuers? Try beating that prologue. One of the best SF books ever written.
Rating:
Summary: Why why why????!?!?!?
Review: Why can you not order this book in the US???? It is absolutely boggling that such a masterwork of brilliant sci-fi would be unavailable in the US!! Are we really that dumb that there is not a market for intelligent SF like this here? Have we really become a nation of morons who only like to read Star Trek series books or dumbed-down books based on role-playing games? Surely if people will read William Gibson or Alstair Reynolds, they would love Iain Banks.... Please, please, please, someone publish this in the US..trust me, you'll make money on it. Meanwhile, we'll have to head on over to Amazon.UK and order. You'll end up paying around 15$ per book, shipping and handling included (if the pound stays about where it is now). Well worth it for insane over-the-top dark poetic beautiful space opera. Nothing else can touch it.
Rating:
Summary: Consider _Look to Windward_.
Review: Another reviewer suggested a 3.5 rating. I'd mostly go along with it. 4 stars seems to be too much, while 3 is overly harsh. The UK version of _Consider Phlebas_ and _Look to Windward_ were published with near identical covers. I think that should really be the first insight into these books. First, Consider Phlebas is Banks' first science fiction book. Kudos to him for writing such an excellent book. However, it is necessary to judge an author's work by his other work when one delves into the class of Iain Banks or, say, CJ Cherryh. To say that this is an excellent book would not necessarily be incorrect. When compared to something of, say, Paul Levinson's, one should be stunned by how confident Banks is. His prose is concise and calculating -- and yet entirely engaging and only sporadically dry. Alas, Consider Phlebas falls down when compared to Look to Windward or Excession. In Consider Phlebas, we have Banks' typical deep character development: deeply conflicted, gregarious, and typically not-so-nice protagonists, on missions to do things we might not agree with. As usual, we find ourselves more and more identifying with characters he never fails to kill, seemingly without reason. But in Consider Phlebas, the reader will sometimes find themselves asking, "why on earth did he write these two chapters? what was he getting at?" This is not to say that he isn't making a point. Or that the book makes no sense. It does. There is a well defined plot trajectory, well defined "good guys" and "bad guys", (although you may change your opinion on which is which throughout the book) an engrossing climax, and so on. However, he just doesn't do it as well as he does in some of his later books. I'd definitely recommend it for the avid Banks enthusiast, but for a casual reader, please do yourself a favor and pick up _Excession_ or _Look to Windward_.
Rating: 
Summary: It [wasn't bad], But it Won't Expand your Mind Either.
Review: Really it's 3.5 stars. I enjoyed the book, though it took me quite some time to get through it. I did find it episodic with gimmicks to keep the protagonist engaged. I have always wanted to read a sci fi novel with a secret agent bent to it so this was my wish. Horza is James Bond w/o the pannache. I tend to like my sci fi with great characterization and with some kind of philosphical message on the way of the world. This really had neither element to any great degree. It was a straight forward story with some not entirely successful proclaimations on humanity and the pursuit of perfection. Idirans were religious fanatics blind to anything but their own purpose. The culture basically were bored hedonites. One wonders what would have happened if the Idirans hadn't declared war. I guess the worst thing I can say about this book is that after I finished the last page, I didn't find myself thinking about it's implications at all.
Rating:
Summary: Very stylish Space-Opera
Review: Iain M.Banks is an artist, a modern stylist of Science Fiction. He crafts his writing,his personae and his stories whit utmost elegance. Moreover, he shares whit Storm Constantine the uncanny ability of making you think of actual history when talking of events set in the remotest universes. The Culture, fascinating blend of edonism,liberalism and pragmatism, and the fanatic Idirians, bent on their...jihad,one is tempted to say.But it is best not to draw conclusions too soon: whit Iain M.Banks it is never so simple as it first appears. The personae of Horza and Balveda are very expertly detailed. Another great universe, to be paired to Hamilton's Night's Dawn in scope and complexity.
Rating:
Summary: action, ideas, character ... somewhat dark
Review: An excellent book, full of compelling drama. If you like action and great space opera, this is one of the best. It is not hard science fiction, and there are some flaws in the economics, but it is a rollicking good read. It is Banks' best. But Banks is not one to read if you insist upon happy endings ...
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and simply VAST
Review: This is my first Iain M Banks novel. I have known *of* him for a long time, and thought it was high time I read some of his work. So, I asked a friend to recommend one sci-fi and one contemporary work, and this is the former nomination (thank you Dazey!). For me, starting a sci-fi book is a perilous time. I need to be convinced within the first few pages, else I will be turned off. And in sci-fi, getting convinced can take some doing. But Banks pulls it off with consummate ease. He is a truly natural story teller, and his writing has great fluidity and reality whether the location is Glasgow or Schars World. And so to the specifics of this novel. We follow the adventures of Horza from the first page of the book, where he faces certain death, to the last, where... he faces certain death! Along the way... yep, you guessed it, he faces certain death. Horza lurches from one disaster to the next, but all along he is following a path which seems to be destiny. A return to Schars World, where his past, and his love, were left behind. These are not normal times in the galaxy. The backdrop to Horza's odyssey is a war raging across 100,000 light years, fought between the Culture and the Idirans. The scale of this war is breathtaking, with billions dying and battle ships that are kilometers long. In such times, the journey of Horza and his rag-taggle company could pass unnoticed, except that Horza has been working for the Idirans, and Schars World holds something that both sides of the conflict are desperate to capture. Thus Horza becomes a mortal in a war between Gods. That sounds like a greek reference, and indeed there is more than a hint of greek mythology in the epic tale. Where this book really *works* for me is in the meshing together of this personal odyssey and the galactic war. Horza as a tiny piece of flotsam on a stormy ocean. Along the way he constructs a very credible universe, a convincing hero and manages to find time for humor, pathos and tragedy. Consider Phlebas is space opera of the highest, most defining, variety.
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