Consider Phlebas: published 1987
The Quarry: published 2013
Scotland lost two of its best authors in June this year:
Iain Banks and his sci-fi alter-ego, Iain ‘M’ Banks. I may have mentioned previously that I’m something
of a fan of the Scotsman’s work, but on the whole I have largely, up until now,
eschewed his sci-fi offerings - his ‘M’ work, so to speak. I’ve always been sure
they’re very good; they come highly recommended by close friends; but sci-fi
just isn’t really my cup of tea. This genre-prejudice was unexpectedly
challenged, however, with the sudden news of Banks’ diagnosis with terminal
cancer. He announced that the novel he was currently working on – The Quarry – looked
like it would be his last. Before my pre-ordered copy even arrived, I’d made my
decision: with no more ‘mainstream’ Banks novels on the way, if I wanted to
continue to enjoy his work, it was time to try his considerable back catalogue
of sci-fi novels – authored (at his publisher’s suggestion) by Iain ‘M’ Banks.
1987’s
Consider Phlebas was his first sci-fi offering; his reputation by this point
already well established with the dark and compelling non-genre novels The Wasp
Factory and The Bridge. The story takes place in a galaxy far, far away (I’m
sorry, sci-fi terms really aren’t my strong suit) in the midst of a war between
two powerful, ideologically opposed civilisations: the militaristic,
religiously motivated Idirans and atheistic artificial-intelligence enthusiasts
The Culture. But the main character is a member of neither: Bora Horza Gorbuchal
is a ‘Changer’, a humanoid species that can (with a notice period of a day or
two) take on the appearance of anyone they like. Currently engaged as a
mercenary for the Idirans, he’s motivated by a dislike of the Culture’s godless
ways and an assignment to capture a Culture ‘mind’ from a deserted (but still
very dangerous) Planet of the Dead. Along the way, he insinuates himself into
Kraiklyn’s Free Company, a bunch of space pirates led by a dislikeable egotist.
Unlike
some of the (admittedly very few) other sci-fi novels I have read, Consider
Phlebas is instantly enjoyable – to a non-sci-fi fan at least – because it
doesn’t take itself too seriously. But there are some intriguing themes here nonetheless.
I wasn’t quite sure who I should be rooting for in the war: the Idirans are
fundamentally unsympathetic, yet the protagonist prefers them to the anarchistic
Culture. The author’s politics are most evident in what we discover about the
Culture – a post-scarcity, currency-free socialist utopia – but even they are
not portrayed as perfect or even correct. They are just as war-mongering as the
Idirans, and justify the expansion of their civilisation in a similar way –
albeit without the religion. The Culture crops up, either centrally or peripherally,
in a number of later novels, and Consider Phlebas leaves the reader wanting to
discover more about them.
On the
downside, Consider Phlebas is a real slab of a book, which wouldn’t be a
problem if the length was really necessary – but it isn’t. Horza and the Free Company
stop off en-route at various places for reasons which, more often than not, don’t
really progress the plot in any way. Presumably with such a fertile imagination
it must be tempting to cram everything in to one’s first novel, but the fact
that Banks has done so is obvious. There are some enjoyable distractions here –
a high-stakes gambling session known as ‘Damage’ is a particular highlight. But
much of it could doubtless have waited for future outings. It meanders around
the galaxy fairly aimlessly at times, and is in no way as tight and structured
as its much-superior follow-up, The Player of Games.
Where
Consider Phlebas is overlong, The Quarry is the opposite: you get the
impression that, had the author not discovered he had a terminal illness, the
final article would have been significantly more developed. Characters and
concepts feel under-cooked and under-explored. As it is, we are presented with
little more than the bare bones of a novel, which reads as something like an
Iain Banks paint-by-numbers. All the tropes are there: the big reunion (in
this instance, a group of former university friends), the big house, the
political rants, the liberal sprinkling of drugs and booze. At its centre is
the relationship between Kit, an intelligent but mildly autistic young man, and
his father Guy. Guy was the ringleader of a bohemian group of creative types at university, but his glory days are well behind him and nowadays he
is coughing his way through the final stages of lung cancer, his lifetime of
indulgences evidently having caught up with him. The old mates, for their part,
have become to varying degrees cynical, yuppified and / or generally unpleasant,
with the exception of Kit’s ally, Holly. But, having been dragged back to the
tumbledown house in Northumberland, Guy might just have one or two surprises
left for them.
The
novel is written from Kit’s point of view, and this is probably the best aspect
of the novel: the way that a fifty-something bloke can convincingly get into
the head of an eighteen year old with Asperger’s, and sustain the voice for a
whole novel. Other aspects, unfortunately, suffer from being underdeveloped. There’s
the whole premise of the search for an incriminating videotape, for example,
which seems very contrived (no doubt a further draft would have resolved this).
There’s also the quarry of the title, a heavy-handed metaphor lurking beyond
Guy and Kit’s garden wall and due for expansion once Guy shuffles off his
mortal coil, taking his house with it.
There
isn’t much else to say about The Quarry really. It bears many of the hallmarks
of what made Banks a great writer, but – for understandable reasons – it does
not compare well with many previous works, not least 2012’s Stonemouth.
Finally, in what seems like a fairly cruel slice of irony, Banks claims he didn’t
find out about his own cancer until he was part way through The Quarry, and the
storyline of Guy’s terminal illness well advanced. Makes you wonder if he
wished he’d started a novel about winning the lottery, or bedding Miss World or
something, instead.
So, Consider
Phlebas and The Quarry: they’re two very different books, with two and a half
decades between them, and neither is perfect. Whereas one bears testament to an
understandably rushed job, the other is arguably overlong; the product of an
up-and-coming author brimming with imagination. Neither, perhaps, is the
well-honed, polished piece of work that Banks produced at the high points in
his career, like The Crow Road or The Player of Games. But both have their
moments, at least, and are memorable in their own ways. With my bookshelves
already weighed down with Banks’ back catalogue, shortly to be joined by the
rest of his Culture series, I can’t help looking at the gaping hole his departure
has left in the British literary world, and wondering when we are ever likely
to see someone with the talent to match it.
P.S: check out our political-flavoured tribute to the late Iain Banks over at The Red Train (co-written with Alastair JR Ball)
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