Consider Phlebas
Published 1987
By Iain M. Banks
Iain M. Banks started off writing well-received (or so I've heard) fiction novels. Consider Phlebas was Banks' first foray into the realm of science fiction, and the start of his rightfully acclaimed series of Culture novels; and what a debut. A virtual Odyssey of a space opera, alternately mind-bogglingly huge in scale and surprisingly personal, Consider Phlebas really has to be experienced to be believed.
Banks' Culture series is centred around an intergalactic society of eccentric, liberal, hedonistic humanoids and their incredibly intelligent machines, called Minds. So technologically advanced and resource-rich as to render commerce irrelevant, people in the Culture are left to their own devices, to pursue any interests, study, go native, defect, rejoin, change sex and appearance, and really anything else you can imagine. It's basically a pan-human Utopia, but a moral one. Naturally divergent in opinion, as its population is measured in many trillions of beings, citizens of the Culture share an interest in good works - helping "primitive" societies develop without resorting to violence, preventing genocides, and maintaining diplomacy with the many other galactic civilizations (both less and more powerful.) Banks' universe is easily the most fully realized, complex, and yet somehow utterly believable of any comparable science fiction I've read. If you are new to sci-fi or are only familiar with the classics, you'll probably be completely stunned by the depth and fullness of Banks' vision. At the centre of the Culture are the Minds, massively powerful and intelligent sentient machines that help to guide and assist the humans in achieving their goals. Banks should be commended for envisioning a future in which the tired old theme of sentient machines being the beginning of the end of civilization is abandoned for a more benificent possibility. In spite of our differences, might machines and humans not share similar sentiments?
Consider Phlebas is about a holy war between the mainly secular and materialist Culture, and a powerful race of tripedal religious zealots called the Idirans. The Idirans' religion calls for them to expand and conquer infidel civilizations in the name of their God. On the galactic scale, they eventually find themselves in conflict with a young and still developing Culture, unprepared for war and naturally prone to pacifism. The Culture objects to the Idirans' expansion on principal; what the Idirans' don't realize is how willing the Culture is to fight for its moral convictions. Expecting an easy victory, instead the Idirans are drawn into a full-scale war of immense proportions, measuring deaths in the hundreds of billions.
Banks' style bounces easily between these incomprehensibly huge scales - millions of light years, "gigadeaths," giant artificial worlds, extinctions of whole civilizations - and a very personal story of one man's crusade in the midst of this war. Bora Horza Gobuchul is a Changer, a shape-shifting human fighting his own war; except that he is fighting for the Idirans against the Culture. While not prescribing to the religion of the Idirans, he supports them precisely because they are against the Culture. For Horza, the Culture represents the unnatural; it is his belief that the Minds that run the Culture also strip it of its humanity. In spite of their bigotry and fanaticism, the Idirans are, as he says, "on the side of Life." Horza is recruited by the Idirans to find a rogue Mind that has escaped their grasp and hidden on a forbidden world watched over by god-like beings called the Dra'Azon. Hitching a ride with a mercenary ship, Horza sets out to capture the Mind with a captured Culture agent in tow, but things don't exactly go as smoothly as planned.
All this might sound like typical sci-fi, but what separates Banks is his atypical style. Behind the baffling technology, descriptions of hyperspace travel and impossibly grand scale, the story of Horza's quest is gritty and immediate. Filled with humour, lofty philosophical diatribes, sexual, violent, disturbing, scatalogical, unpredictable and oddly poignant, and almost never slackening its pace, Consider Phlebas maintains an earthy and personal feel in spite of its huge ambition. Banks is thoroughly hip and ironic, and these characteristics weave themselves into the story and into the fabric of the Culture itself; intelligent, knowing, reflective and self-depracating, Culture citizens seem to accompany all of their actions with a wink. Likewise, Consider Phlebas is easy to breeze through, but begs to be taken seriously as well.
It's not my favourite Culture novel, and it does drag a bit in the final chapters, but Consider Phlebas is a great intro to Banks' peculiar and bombastic brand of science fiction. As with all of his Culture series, highly recommended.
9.0
The Surrogates
2006
Written by Robert Venditti
Art by Brett Weldele
The Surrogates was recently made into a film of the same title starring Bruce Willis, but I heard it wasn't very good. However, the comic was generally well-received and I thought I would read it rather than watch a mediocre movie.
The story is about our society in the not-too-distant future, and the introduction of the surrogate, a marriage between virtual reality and robotics that allows people to live life by proxy without having to leave their homes. Originally created to help the disabled and paralyzed lead a normal life, big business sees the potential marketing value of the product to regular citizens. By the middle of the 21st century, 92% of North American society uses a "surrie." Surries are customizable, giving people the option of altering their physical appearance, even sex, recording and playing back data, altering sensory experience, and so on. As Virtual Self Inc., the company in charge of surrie production, says in its advertising campaign, living via surrogate is "Life. Only better."
The story follows detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford as they track down a mysterious terrorist who seems intent on changing the world back to its pre-surrogate state. In its five issues, The Surrogates manages to cram in a lot of food for thought, despite being based around a fairly simple cat and mouse detective story. In between issues are supplementary materials a la Alan Moore's The Watchmen, designed to add depth to the future society. Between these materials and the philosophical implications of the adoption of surries into society, there's quite a lot to chew on.
The interesting (and scary) part is that I can totally see this happening. The surrogate to me seems to just be an extension of online anonymity. Millions of people are already opting to create personae for themselves in a technological milieu free of actual interaction. In many ways people already live "by proxy." We have grown so reliant on new technology even in the last twenty years; it's sort of hard to imagine returning to a pre-internet world at this point. But at which point does our anonymity and dependence on technology prevent us from living our lives as human beings? This is one of the main themes of The Surrogates, and it seems like a timely question to me. It's also a succinct commentary on our obsession with physical appearance and how we wish to represent ourselves in society; how we wish to be perceived.Venditti's writing is the main attraction, but Bret Weldele's sketchy, monochromatic artwork definitely grows on you, and it suits this gritty tale. The Surrogates is quite accomplished for an independent comic. Recommended.
8.2
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