First Science Fiction Novels #1 - Iain M. Banks' 'Consider Phlebas' (1987) [Age: 33]

I came to this with great expectations because it is written by a 'literary figure', albeit that it is an early work (1987) and only the first in a series of 11 science fiction 'culture novels'. Those expectations were too high but it has to be said that Iain M. Banks (aka Iain Banks) writes infinitely better on a technical level than the vast majority of science fiction writers. There are moments where his talent for precise description make the novel almost filmic.

There are also times where an intelligent writer's sensibility comes through. He makes you think about the types of psychological adaptations our species might make to the world of the space opera. His aliens are not so unbelievable in terms of thought processes either.

And yet, and yet ... the sensibility is a hybrid between the intelligent and the adolescent. Long bone-crunching battle scenes might have come off Playstation 3 if it had been invented (one stifles the occasional yawn) while many scenes are just more sophisticated versions of a Star Wars episode. He is weak on resolution of the drama.

The imagination is rich and deep and yet undeveloped. The characters are psychologically real enough (far more so than in most rival offerings) ... and yet, and yet ... they live as well imagined genre actors rather than as something more.

The frustration lies in the fact that the book is a much more sophisticated space opera than other offerings on the shelves in terms of literary skill but only a little more sophisticated in terms of plot and ideas. Flashes of genius are interspersed with long tracts of well furbished cliche.

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