Consider Phlebas

How it reads

Consider Phlebas is science fiction (space opera, specifically), and its dominant mood is adventurous. It's driven by momentum, discovery and getting into trouble. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in several locations, in the future, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are war, power and politics and survival. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It opens a series. The ending is dark — no rescue, no neat bow. At 467 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.