Notes on 'Consider Phlebas' (1987) by Iain M. Banks (1954-2013)
Together with Bruce Sterling, David Zindell and Dan Simmons, Iain M. Banks belongs to the generation of critically acclaimed sf writers who from the mid-1980s onwards brought space opera back on the map. Consider Phlebas is the first work in Bank’s Culture series (1987-2012) which to date count a total of ten novels. While a certain level of utopianism define the whole series, Consider Phlebas nevertheless paints a bleak outlook for humanity, with human agency in structural decline as a result of all-powerful machine intelligence.