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''Consider Phlebas'', first published in 1987, is a space opera novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks. Written after a 1984 draft, it is the first to feature the Culture. The novel revolves around the Idiran-Culture War, and Banks plays on that theme by presenting various microcosms of that conflict. Its protagonist Bora Horza Gobuchul is actually an enemy of the Culture. ''Consider Phlebas'' is Banks's first published science fiction novel set in the Culture, and takes its title from a line in T. S. Eliot's poem ''The Waste Land''. A subsequent Culture novel, ''Look to Windward'' (2000), whose title comes from the previous line of the same poem, can be considered a loose follow-up. ==Plot summary== The Culture and the Idiran Empire are at war in a galaxy-spanning conflict. Horza, a mercenary capable of altering his appearance at will (a Changer), is assigned the task of retrieving a dispossessed Culture Mind by his Idiran handlers. The Mind, while fleeing attacking Idirans who consider its existence an abomination, has taken refuge on Schar's World. The Dra'Azon, godlike incorporeal beings, maintain Schar's World as a monument to its extinct civilisation, leaving it nominally forbidden to both the Culture and the Idirans. Horza, however, was one of a group of Changers allowed to be on the planet as stewards. The Idirans believe the Dra'Azon guardian may let him in, and thus assign him to go there and retrieve the Mind. The plot takes many digressions on the way to the denouement. As the book opens, Horza is undergoing a grisly execution (by drowning in sewage) at the hands of a Culture-aligned gerontocracy. Here he meets Culture Special Circumstances agent Perosteck Balveda for the first time. He is rescued at the eleventh hour, and Balveda is captured and apparently summarily killed, when the Idiran advanced war fleet invades the planet, and he is informed of his mission to Schar's World. However, the Idiran starship on which he is travelling is soon ambushed by a Culture war vessel, and Horza is ejected so as not to fall into enemy hands. Drifting in an escape suit, he is picked up by a pirate ship, the ''Clear Air Turbulence'' (''CAT''). He is forced to fight and kill one of them in order to prove his value as a potential recruit and avoid being left for dead. Horza soon resolves to take over the ship by replacing the captain, Kraiklyn, who leads them on two disastrous pirate raids in which several of the crew perish. After the second failed raid (targeting a massive sea ship on the orbital Vavatch, which is due to be destroyed by the Culture), Horza is taken prisoner by a bizarre cult living on an island on the orbital. He escapes his impending sacrifice by killing the cult leader, a monstrously obese cannibal, as well as his priests. He makes his way to the main city of Vavatch where he finds Kraiklyn and some of the few remaining ''CAT'' crew are alive. Having now changed his appearance to mimic that of the ''CAT'' captain, Horza watches Kraiklyn play a high-stakes game of "Damage"—a card game featuring direct mind-to-mind contact, where the "tokens" of play are actual living beings who are killed when a player loses a round. Kraiklyn loses the game, and Horza then follows him back to the ''CAT'', kills him, and returns bearing his guise. There, to his dismay, he is introduced to the newest crew member, whom he recognises as a disguised Perosteck Balveda. Just as Horza immobilises her with a stun gun, Culture agents outside try to capture the ship. Horza manages to lift off and takes the ''CAT'' on a wild ride through the immense starship which is carrying out Vavatch's evacuation. As the fugitives warp away from Vavatch, they see the Orbital destroyed by the Culture warships. Balveda, now exposed as a Culture agent, in turn exposes Horza; seeing no reason to continue his deception, he instead recruits the remnants of the crew to carry out his mission. A Vavatch drone, Unaha-Closp, has been trapped on the ship; he reluctantly joins the team. Horza and his crew land on Schar's World and go in search for the Mind in the labyrinthine Command System, a vast complex of subterranean train stations. They soon discover that the Mind is also being hunted by a pair of Idiran soldiers who have killed all the Changers stationed on the planet, and who regard Horza and his crew as enemies, having no knowledge of the Changers' alliance with the Idirans. Horza has kept Balveda alive, possibly as a hostage, and she goes along with the mission. Horza's situation is further complicated when his crewmate Yalson reveals that she is pregnant by him. The ''CATs crew encounter the Idirans in one of the Command System stations, and in an intense firefight apparently kill one and capture the other. After tracking the Mind to another station, the drone Unaha-Closp discovers it hiding in the reactor car of a Command System train. The captured Idiran, Xoxarle, frees himself and kills his guard. The second Idiran, who had been mortally wounded but not killed, sets one of the trains for a collision course to the station, which kills Yalson. The enraged Horza pursues Xoxarle, who overwhelms him, but dies at the hands of Unaha-Closp and Balveda. All of the crew of the ''Clear Air Turbulence'' have been killed, the drone is severely damaged, and the fatally wounded Horza dies soon after Balveda gets him to the surface. Horza fails his mission, with the Mind returning to the Culture. Following the final chapter, an appendix tells of the continued lives of the surviving characters, and a summary of the causes and course of the Culture-Idiran war, including the extinction of the Changer species. In an epilogue, the Mind becomes a starship, and names itself the ''Bora Horza Gobuchul''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Consider Phlebas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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