Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (3.5 stars)

Banks creates a universe for epic-scope space opera, which is great, but this novel is actually fairly weak.

The protagonist Horza, a shapeshifter, stumbles from one seemingly random experience to another: a laser fight in a temple, an ill-fated looting mission on a soon-to-be-destroyed orbital, an escape from a fat cannibal who is slowly eating his religious followers to death, among many others. Don't get me wrong, there were great feats of imagination here, but the almost complete lack of any thread tying it all together meant I just didn't really care about any of the characters, especially true during the obviously pointless and stupid temple mission.

Horza has sided with the Idirans, who we know are barbaric and brutal, but we never see any evidence or rationale for why Horza is so anti-Culture, or get an explanation for his violent hate of their society. This ambiguity and weakness in Horza's character might be deliberate, but it didn't help me empathize with him at all. Perosteck Balveda, the Culture agent, is obviously using Horza to get access to the planet, but I couldn't tell in some places if Banks was portraying Horza as unbelievably naive to not realise this, or trying to assure himself (Horza) that he still had the upper hand and was in control of the situation:

As for Perosteck Balveda, she was his prisoner; it was as simple as that.

Fal 'Ngeestra, mountaineer and Culture Referrer (basically a highly evolved soothsayer), seemed interesting to start with, but I soon grew bored of her semi-mystical, too-much-peyote passages:

We are vapor, raised against our own devices, made nebulous, blown on whatever wind arises. To start again, glacial or not.

Having slogged through this crap, it was all the more annoying to have her storyline just die.

Banks manages a few very well-placed digs at religion. Horza gets pissed off that someone with religion interprets the impressive engineering achievement of a Culture-built orbital as a triumphant testimony to the power of God:

...genuinely annoyed that the woman could use even something so obviously a testament to the power of intelligence and hard work as an argument for her own system of irrational belief.

The action sequence of Horza blasting his way out of a giant GSV while swearing at an annoying drone couldn't have been more like Han Solo, the Millenium Falcon, and C-3PO, so much so that it felt formulaic to me. Maybe I've just seen too much Star Wars.

Speaking of movie plots, there is a jarring passage about three-quarters through the book that seems to imply this is all a training simulation - Matrix red-pill style. Perhaps this will become clear in later novels:

"Just a moment," Xoralundra said. He looked at something in his hand which threw colored lights across his broad gleaming face. Then he slapped his other hand to his mouth an expression of astonished surprise on his face as he turned to him and siad, "Oh, Sorry!" and suddenly reached over and shoved him back into the..

While the final sequence underground was entertaining, it was fairly mindless action-novel stuff, with a poor ending. Banks is obviously talented, and has a great imagination, this just isn't his best book. I've already started reading The Player of Games set in the same universe and it is far far superior.

3.5 stars.