
Consider Phlebas
Culture Series, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Peter Kenny
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By:
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Iain M. Banks
About this listen
The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.
'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson
War rages across the galaxy. Billions have died, billions more are doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, face cold-blooded, brutal destruction. The Idirans fight for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles are at stake. There can be no surrender.
Within this cosmic conflict, a crucial battle of wits is waged. Deep within a fabled labyrinth, on a Planet of the Dead forbidden to mortals, lies a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans desperately seek it. It is the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, to actually find it - and with it their own destruction.
The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art
Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist
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Visionary but half-cooked intro to Culture 'verse
- By Ryan on 07-20-13
By: Iain M. Banks
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Children of Time
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- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
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Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
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- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
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-
-
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By: William Gibson
-
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- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Arthur Bishop
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
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According to Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur on February 13, 2001, at 2:27 p.m. It will be the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience: Should it go on expanding indefinitely or collapse and make another great big BANG? For its own cosmic reasons, it decides to back up a decade to 1991, giving the world a 10-year case of deja vu, making everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during the past decade.
-
-
Arias only make hopeless situations worse
- By Darwin8u on 12-28-17
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Wayward Galaxy
- Wayward Galaxy, Book 1
- By: Jason Anspach, J. N. Chaney
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
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Story
A company of Army Rangers is sent on an interstellar colony ship to secure a foothold on a dangerous, alien planet through violence of action. Leaving behind a warring Earth flung headfirst into a conflict of mutual assured destruction, the Rangers and the accompanying crew of first colonists are guided on a 40-year journey by an unprecedented artificial intelligence. But when they emerge from the frigid embrace of cryosleep, they awake to a nightmare, finding themselves greeted by the same ruthless enemy that brought about the ruin of Earth.
-
-
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By: Jason Anspach, and others
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- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
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The Age of Death ended countless millennia ago. No longer burdened by limited lifespans, the immortal humans who populate inhabited space now have the luxury to travel vast distances effortlessly and to tinker with the intricate mechanics of space time. But one such experiment in quantum physics has had a catastrophic and unanticipated result, creating an enormous, rapidly expanding vacuum - a region of new physics - with the frightening potential to devour countless inhabited solar systems.
-
-
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Critic reviews
'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson
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On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
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Consider Phlebas
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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....
-
-
Visionary but half-cooked intro to Culture 'verse
- By Ryan on 07-20-13
By: Iain M. Banks
-
The Algebraist
- Culture
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
-
-
Surprisingly meh
- By Ryan on 05-19-24
By: Iain M. Banks
-
Anathem
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 32 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.
-
-
I love Neal, but Good lord... ugh!
- By SpiderGrrl on 10-08-19
By: Neal Stephenson
-
The Mote in God's Eye
- By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
- Narrated by: L J Ganser
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".
-
-
A great read!
- By J. Rhoderick on 02-12-10
By: Larry Niven, and others
-
Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
-
-
The Shrike Awaits. Enter The Time Tombs...
- By Michael on 10-13-12
By: Dan Simmons
-
Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
-
-
Defeated
- By Eoin on 07-15-12
Fantastic narrative but shallow plot
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A brilliant book if ever there was one.
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Geekie sci fi war story
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Boring start but picked up pace
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The book was a bit indulgent with the worldbuilding/exposition at the cost of character and plot. Some parts were a bit too much spectacle for the sake of spectacle (or just a thought experiment the author really wanted to put in somewhere) and did only marginally contribute to the overall narrative/theme.
The narrator was great and absolutely enhanced the experience.
Worth Reading, but not much more
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What did you love best about Consider Phlebas?
The unassuming pace is interesting like listening to a day dreamWho was your favorite character and why?
Horza does kind of grow on you as the tough secret agent persona wears away. None of the characters are easy to like. And the ones that do... well...What about Peter Kenny’s performance did you like?
Passable attempt at alien voices. The mapping of an unknown alien voice to known earth accent is always a tough one like why do French slum dwellers inherit a cockney accent in Les Miserables. Why do Culture supercomputers get the sound of a pompous nineteenth century English fop?Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. the slower patches are pleasant and necessary but do not engender a sprint readAny additional comments?
This story is more than the sum of its parts.The after taste is interesting and since it is part of a loose series it is enough to hit the buy now button a couple more times.
Culture Book 1 - Not a classic but a solid effort
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Some of the scenes in the book are reflective of the extremities of behaviour which might be expected by extrapolating extreme character traits over immense populations, and I must confess I found them a bit strong - but they do contribute to the depth of characterisation and the sense of urgency in the story line.
The performance from Peter Kenny is well paced and compelling - to quote Jerry Pournelle in the golden days of Byte magazine - 'recommended'.
Classic, intelligent sciFi
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.
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An average start to a monumental work
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Great book, great narration
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